


Drabbles and Thangs

by Higgystar



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Dixoncest, Drabbles, Gen, Higgy's prompts, M/M, Other, The Real Me AU, Underage - Freeform, dixcest, prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-03-25 00:23:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 26,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3789727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Higgystar/pseuds/Higgystar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Each chapter is a finished prompt from when I've asked for mini fic prompts. There are various pairings, each chapter is a different prompt, various ratings, different genres. I just needed a place to put all my mini fics that didn't have enough to be a full fic by themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Real Me AU - gen Shane & Daryl friendship

**For your drabble thang! Read this prompt somewhere I don't know if it turned into something but I thought it would be good! Like, Shane helping Daryl to cope with being touched. with like. over comfort. Because I can't get enough of these two. Maybe kinda with the Daryl you write in "the real me" I don't know i'm just throwing this here. Xx**

Daryl wakes up with a jolt, sheets around his waist, terror in his gasps and tears in his eyes. It’s not his fault that he whimpers, nor that he can’t stop from seeing Sophia and Merle stumbling towards him, eyes white and glazed, with rotten skin over their fingers. He knows there’s no way he’s going to be able to sleep tonight, so he doesn’t bother trying, instead he gets up, Merle’s shirt tugged over the top of his own before he leaves the tent. The air is cold tonight, it cools the tears on his cheeks as he tries to wipe them away and the grass is already beginning to catch the morning dew.

Sniffing back his worries, Daryl moves to climb the RV, instinctively seeking out company after a nightmare and knowing that he wasn’t going to be refused. It’s been the same ever since Atlanta, but after losing Sophia it’s only gotten worse. Still he has this to help and it’s no surprise that as soon as he’s settled in his regular place on the roof of the RV, Shane is letting the shotgun rest to the side and looking over to him. “Another nightmare?”

He doesn’t even have to answer, there’s no need for a nod or anything, Shane knows the answer already. It’s stupid and he knows he’s supposed to be strong, but sometimes it just got too hard to be strong all the time. He remembers being little, and when he’d be allowed to rush into his mother’s arms after a nightmare and be held tight until the tears stopped and he could sleep safely again. But that wasn’t an option anymore and he hated that.

“Wanna talk about it?” Shane asks and Daryl can only shake his head in answer. Some nights he finds it easier to say it out loud, but not tonight.

Tonight he wishes he could have that closeness he remembers from so long ago, but Daryl knows it’s ridiculous to even think about it. Only babies wanted to be held like that, and he was a full-grown man, not a child. No matter what he wanted, it just wasn’t right.

Daryl knew he was different in a lot of ways, and Merle had always told him he was like a kid sometimes, but it just means he has to work harder to stick to the rules he’d learned. Hide it all away, pretend like he was normal and definitely not ask for hugs after a nightmare. No matter how much he wanted one right now.

Burying his nose in the collar of Merle’s shirt he’s wearing, Daryl keeps his lips closed and focuses on watching the world around them. The world is turning the seasons, fall is coming with each new day and it won’t be long until the Georgia version of winter was over them all. The cold doesn’t distract him enough and he can’t stop the shiver that runs through him as the image of Merle growling at him flashes before his eyes.

“Hey it’s okay man.” Shane hushes him and before Daryl even realises what’s happening there’s a hand on his shoulder giving him a slight squeeze. He freezes; body stiffening instinctively at being touched and it’s really more of a reflex to flinch away than a want to stop it. “Daryl?” Shane asks and again that hand is back, holding him, squeezing his shoulder and he can’t pull away much more unless he wants to fall off the RV.

“You ain’t…” He mumbles, voice stumbling over his lips as he tries to explain. It’s not that he wants Shane to stop comforting him; it’s just that he knows he shouldn’t want it. “You ain’t gotta do that, I’m…I’m not a kid.” Daryl explains, hunching in on himself a little more, trying to stop the want from showing.

If he hears him Shane doesn’t show it, and Daryl can only feel his breath hitch in surprise when the bigger man slides closer to him, an arm wrapping around his shoulders properly and tugging him in to press against his side. It’s strange, but not unwanted. He’s not used to having anybody this close to him aside from Merle, and the thought of his brother only makes the nightmare crop back up in his mind. It makes him shiver with a tiny shaky sob and then Shane is tugging him closer again.

This time he doesn’t pull back, instead he shifts the tiniest bit closer, leaning in to the body heat that Shane is sharing with him and giving a small sigh. He doesn’t care if he shouldn’t want it, right now he does want it and it wasn’t like Merle was here to yell at him for it. Daryl feels small, he feels lost and alone and right now being held by Shane was helping to get rid of the feeling of loss that runs through him at the thought of his brother. It’s helping and right now he’ll take it.

Shane doesn’t mock him like he’d thought he would, instead the other man is quiet, letting him rest against his side and just holding him steady. Daryl doesn’t get laughed at for feeling upset, he doesn’t get mocked for waking up in tears, Shane just accepts what has happened and tries to help him through it. It’s nice. It kind of feels like maybe this is okay, even if it’s only for the minute.

“You know after Rick got shot I had nightmares for weeks about it.” Shane tells him and Daryl can hear how this is something to only be shared now between the two of them. With him pressed into Shane’s warmth, and the other man rubbing at his back in soothing circles to keep away the upset. “Before, if I ever had a nightmare about something Rick would be there, even if it was three in the morning, he’d answer my call and sometimes even come over for a late night beer to make me feel better. But after he was shot…” There’s a pause and Daryl ducks his head when Shane rubs over the back of his head. “Point is, I know how it feels to be alone. It sucks man. So you ever need someone after something like this, you come to me you hear?”

It feels like it should be a joke, but it feels too open, too raw to be one. Shane is being so honest with him, holding him close and letting him tug his brother’s shirt higher to bury his nose in the scent that is pure Merle. If he’s not mocking him now, then Daryl was sure this was for real and he’s so damned grateful to have the offer for something he’s always wanted. If Shane was willing to give him the comfort he’s always needed, then he would welcome it with open arms.

“Thank you Shane.” He mumbles with a nod, letting his head drop to the other man’s shoulder with a content sigh. The arm around his back holds him close, keeping him warm in the chilly night and providing more comfort than he’s used to. Daryl thinks it feels far too nice to be wrong.


	2. Rick/Daryl - accidental 1st kiss

**How about this for a prompt: "The first time that Rick and Daryl kiss, it's an accident."**

Honestly Rick can’t believe that the CDC is still standing. It’s the relief that makes him give up his guard, after days of being constantly on edge and alert for danger, getting to imbibe and actually relax feels more than just good. So he takes his time, getting through the bottle of wine and wandering the halls of their new home well after Lori has fallen asleep. His wife and son are safe, asleep in beds deep underground away from the threat above them and it’s only now that he can breathe easily.

The world has changed around them, humans are no longer the hunters, but the hunted and now they all had to sacrifice the life they’d known and get used to hiding underground for their own safety. It’s with a small smile that he wanders the halls, bottle on wine in hand as he stumbles his way along, inspecting their new home and trying to familiarise himself with it all.

He’s not the only one up tonight and it isn’t long until he’s got company, the form of Daryl Dixon stumbling towards him with his own bottle of booze in hand. The hallway isn’t so long that they can ignore each other, instead Rick ends up grinning, watching as the other man pointedly doesn’t look his way. But he’s not as antisocial and it’s either the wine or the relief that makes him glad to go over to talk to him.

“Not settling in so easily?” He asks, leaning against the wall and taking a look over the other man.

For someone that acted so sure of himself the whole time, Rick can read the underlying insecurity that flows through each inch of Daryl’s Dixon. He’s always been good at reading people, and Daryl is like an open book for him. So it’s not a surprise when the other man shakes his head before answering. “Ain’t never done so good being locked up. Feels wrong to be so far underground and have so much space.” Daryl shrugs.

“Well we need to get used to it, this is home now.” Rick grins to him, understanding the issue but heck this wasn’t the time to get down about their safety. They were alive and safe and this was a night for celebration.

“Home.” Daryl snorts, leaning against the wall beside Rick but not looking anymore relaxed. “You really think this is it? This is going to be our lives now?” He asks and Rick has to think about that for a moment.

Was this what he wanted? For his wife and son? A life underground without sunlight? But with safety. Yes. “There’s not much left out there for us.” Rick tells him, can see the way that Daryl lifts a hand to his mouth to chew on his thumbnail. “Looks like we’re stuck down here together.” He points out with a smile.

It’s not meant to be mocking, it’s a start for them all, a new start, with food and hot water, with safety and it means they can actually live. He wants to give Daryl some kind of reassurance that this is a new beginning for them all, but when he steps closer, reaching out to clap a hand to the other man’s shoulder, he realises just how much he’s had to drink.

Rick stumbles, he slips, Daryl grabs at his arms but it’s not enough to stop him from stumbling into the other man fully. Their foreheads crash together, Daryl grunts out a noise of pain, but then Rick’s lips are hitting the other man’s, his weight causing him to bear down onto Daryl, to add some pressure to the movement and he’d be foolish to say it was anything more than a very messy, very sloppy kiss.

Before he can pull himself away Daryl is shoving him back, snarling out multiple swear words in the few seconds it takes to move away. Rick can see the red spread over the other man’s cheeks, Daryl looks flustered, but it must be the drink that’s doing it. There’s a curse spat in his direction as Daryl shoves past him, stomping down the hallway and disappearing around a corner in seconds.

He rubs a hand over his head, moving it down to his face and finally rubbing his fingers over his lips. They don’t feel any different; it’s just the alcohol making him over think things. He needed to go to bed, he needed to go find Lori and curl up behind her and sleep off the damned wine and get his head to stop over thinking little mistakes. It had been a mistake, an accident, things like that happened when you were drunk. And if he was thinking of how Daryl smelt, or how he could taste the whiskey from his lips, then really it was just the drink making him over think it all.

Tomorrow was a fresh start for them all. A brand new day, a brand-new start. For all of them.


	3. Daaron - Aaron teaches Daryl to enjoy touching himself

**Can I prompt for a smutty and sweet Daaron one?**

**Drabble: maybe Aaron and Daryl? Daryl's never touched himself and Aaron's willing to walk him through it (maybe even shows him himself) ;)**

It their first run together, nothing special has happened so far, but it’s easier to find a safe spot to park the car and hole up in it for the night than to bother returning to Alexandria. Locking the doors they try to get comfortable, both of them shifting to slouch in the backseat, taking a side and slumping as the night draws in around them. It’s not like Daryl isn’t used to sleeping in uncomfortable places, so it’s no bother to him at all, but after Aaron has been squirming and grumbling for a few minutes he can’t help but give a slight huff of annoyance to the other man.

“Not the same as your four poster bed back at Alexandria is it?” He grumbles, eyes still closed, trying to feign sleep or at least give the illusion of rest.

“It’s not that.” Aaron sighs, slumping back, head tilted to watch the ceiling and not looking over to Daryl as he speaks. “Just kind of hard to relax when my body won’t cooperate.”

Daryl wrinkles his nose in confusion, his own body was exhausted, muscles tense from being hunched over the bike all day. So getting to semi slouch and rest is enough for him to give in to at least trying to sleep. However, now he’s intrigued and can’t help but open his eyes to peer through the darkness at Aaron’s squirming form. He’s clearly uncomfortable, but it’s not until the other man reaches down to readjust himself that Daryl notices the problem. “What? What’re you…oh…”

Aaron is hard.

“Sorry.” Aaron mutters through the gap between them, flustered still and Daryl doesn’t close his eyes again just yet. “Can’t exactly help it, I’m used to being with Eric when I go to bed you know? Kind of becomes a habit after a while.” He explains, still squirming in his spot.

He can’t help but watch as Aaron wriggles, almost fascinated by it all. There is no shame with the other man and that’s something he’s still getting used to. Aaron was open with everything, his sexuality, his caring personality, and right now his obvious need for release. Daryl’s not exactly sure what to say or do about the situation, all he knows is that the night is young and he certainly wasn’t going to be getting any rest if Aaron was going to be squirming and wriggling the whole time.

Biting on his lower lip for a moment, he slumps further down on his side of the backseat, unable to ignore the frustrated sounds of Aaron trying to get comfortable. “Just do it if you’ve gotta.” He mumbles, lifting a hand to chew on his thumbnail.

Aaron pauses for a moment, but he doesn’t sound shocked or appalled, he just sounds almost relieved. “You sure? I mean it’s kind of close quarters and stuff.”

“Shared a room with my brother for most of my life, ain’t like I’ve not dealt with it before.” Daryl replies, but he’s still not exactly sure why he’s not bothered by the idea of Aaron doing that so close to him. Still he doesn’t stop him when he hears the sounds of a zipper being undone and pants being shucked down. Instead he stays where he is, and the thing is he doesn’t close his eyes and pretend to be asleep like he had when he was younger.

He watches as Aaron strokes over himself, his hand curled around his cock and running it up the length slowly. It’s not weird to watch him, Aaron’s always so open and this is the same. It feels like he doesn’t mind Daryl watching, or almost as if he kind of wants it. So he watches as Aaron gives a small groan, he feels the reaction his own body is having to the noises and he can almost feel the heat being created from each of Aaron’s panted breaths.

“It feel good?” He asks, voice quiet but meant to be heard. Aaron groans again, and Daryl licks over his lips when he sees his thumb rub over the slit of his cock. Now he’s hard and the thing is he’s not got the most experience in the world, nor the confidence. “I ain’t really never…” His voice trails off, not saying the words but he knows that Aaron can figure it out.

“Do it.” The other man commands, and Daryl finds himself following the orders almost automatically. “Touch yourself.” Aaron tells him, and Daryl shoves a hand down his pants to stroke over his own cock.

It feels good, far too good. He’s never done it before because he was always cursed at for it, yelled at for being dirty, scared out of giving in to his body’s wants and urges. But now there was nothing more than Aaron urging him on, meeting his eyes through the dimness of the night and telling him to do it. So he follows orders, he grips his cock and slowly strokes it, giving a loud huff of pleasure over it all.

“Yeah that’s good huh?” Aaron talks to him, and Daryl looks over to watch the other man’s movements. He copies the motions, tightening his grip a little, rubbing his thumb over the slit of his cock like Aaron does and it’s so fucking good. Daryl’s hips buck up, his back arches a little and he’s biting on his lip to stop the groans from slipping free. “God Daryl I know it feels good, you look so hot touching yourself. You like me touching myself too?” He asks and Daryl can’t find words right now.

So he nods, he nods frantically and lets his hips buck up once more, slipping in his fist and it’s too much already. Letting out a small noise of pleasure, he lets his head thud back to the seat, frantically pumping at his cock as he watches Aaron. It’s all too much when he’s not done it before and it’s all over so fast that he’s whimpering as cum spills over his fingers.

Aaron is gasping as well, moaning and bucking up into his own fist and it’s only when he’s panting himself that Daryl feels the hand reach out to grab his come covered fingers. As soon as the other man feels the warm smear of his come, he’s reaching his own orgasm and Daryl gets to watch as Aaron comes hard, groaning and breathing heavily. It’s intense, and even though he’s on the comedown, Daryl feels his dick twitch in want.

It’s their first run together, he barely knows this man beside him that’s covered in his own come, with his fingers smeared in a mess of Daryl’s as well. It’s their first run, but Daryl doesn’t want it to be their last.


	4. Merle's son, Daryl's nephew is dating Shane

**A drabble of like Merle's or Daryl's son (an OC obvs) in a relationship w Shane ???? And one of them finds out maybe ???**

It’s not that Daryl spies on his nephew; not really, it’s more that he’s just a bit overprotective. He says he gets it from Merle, and with it being only himself and the other man raising the kid, he figures he’s got more than enough reasons to be overprotective of him. He remembers his own upbringing, of nights left in the house alone when he was too small to look after himself, and going hungry because there was no food or power to cook it. Well as soon as Merle had been dumped with the kid by the mother, he’s been there to help out and be in the kid’s life.

Chase was a good kid, a smart kid, he knew of the shit they’d gone through when they were younger and now he was a teenager he was learning what paths not to go down. Daryl trusted him, Merle had pretty much screwed up his own life enough to know not to fuck over his own son, and Chase was proving that he had the brains not to turn to drugs or the rough side of life. It helped that they had enough money to get by with the pair of them working hard at a local garage, Chase had never had to want for nothing and Daryl’s pretty proud of that fact. He knows Merle is too.

So when Chase comes tot hem and says he’s gay, really it’s not a problem for either of them. Sure Merle had maybe gotten pissed and wondered what he’d done to make him that way, but Chase had explained himself and Daryl had punched his brother hard enough to get him thinking straight again. As if the kid loving cock was worse that Merle being a fucking drug addict at the same age. Bullshit, he’d put a stop the his dumbass brother’s way of thinking as soon as he could.

It didn’t change Chase at all, wasn’t like he was any different because of it; it was just the way it was. The kid was happy, he was happy, Merle was getting over it and being happy, so there wasn’t a problem. In fact Daryl was kind of glad that the kid trusted them enough to let them know something so personal.

Thing is, it wasn’t that he didn’t trust Chase. He’s just an overprotective son of a bitch and when the kid mentions having a boyfriend who’s a cop and a few years older than himself, well Daryl can’t help but worry. The kid can handle himself sure, but when you were a teenager you sometimes did stupid things and regretted them later. He didn’t want his nephew regretting anything.

That’s why he’s here now, sitting in the truck at the end of the road, cigarette between his lips as he watches the café in the rear-view mirror. Merle’s on the phone to him, nattering in his ear about everything and nothing as they wait and Daryl sighs out a stream of smoke as he watches Chase pace outside the café once more.

“Think the kid’s been stood up.” He tells his brother and he can hear the snort down the end of the phone.

“Can’t have been stood up, this is like their tenth date.” Merle points out, obviously smoking on his end of the phone too. “Give it another couple of minutes.”

Daryl sighs and takes another puff of his smoke, watching as Chase paces back and forth, checking his phone every few seconds. The café is kinda quiet, he’s been there multiple times, it’s not fancy, just a regular café. Not the best choice for a date, but down to earth just like them, normal, safe and Daryl trusts that at least his nephew wasn’t punching above his weight. So he sits and listens to Merle complain about some new guy at work for a while and it’s not until a familiar car pulls up at the café that he’s speaking again.

“Oh, Shane’s here.” They’ve known the cop forever, ever since he was a newbie and arresting Merle’s dumbass for assault on an almost weekly basis. He’s a decent guy, probably stopping for a coffee at the end of his shift since he’s still in the cop car. Of course the cop waves in greeting to Chase, he’s known the kid for a while anyway, and Daryl’s about to continue his chat with his brother when it happens. Shane walks over, leans in and fucking kisses Chase on the mouth.

“Holy fuck its Shane.”

“Yeah you said that baby brother, now this Martinez kid-“

“No Merle its fucking Shane! Shane is the date. Shane is chase’s date. Shane is kissing your fucking kid. Holy fuck, holy fuck!”


	5. Daryl & Judith's day of fun!

**rickly au daryl's day with toddler judith. daryls kinda in-between jobs, ricks at work and carl in school, and judy hasn't started school so its the two of them chilling. maybe watching cartoons, going grocery shopping, going to the park, sending silly snaps to rick and distracting him (all the domestic fluff)**

The moment the door shuts behind Rick and Carl, there’s a moment of silence in the house. Daryl takes a moment to breathe, just rocking on his heels before turning to face the toddler already grinning up at him in excitement. Judith squeals, reaching her arms up, fingers clenching open and closed to him as she bounces on the spot. “Dar-Dar! Up! Up!”

Of course he complies, never one to deny his favourite girl, and scoops her up to settle on his hip. “Alright Asskicker, what the hell are we gonna do today?” He asks her, already making his way to the mass of kids toys stashed in the family room. They’ve got everything he could ever think of needing and then more, most of it pink, but all of it Judith’s favourite. Not that he minded, so long as she was happy he didn’t care.

“Doodles! And princesses!” Judith crows to him, her arms in the air, already grinning and so excited to spend the day with him. Thing is, this was everyday, so Daryl’s not too sure what the excitement is all about, but heck at least Judith was enthusiastic about getting to spend all day with only himself for company.

“Drawing? Yeah alright we can do that. Let’s make more pictures to go on the fridge.” He agrees, balancing her on one hip and keeping her up with one arm while he hunts for their supplies. Personally he didn’t care about making a mess, but Rick kept going on about the carpet and the deposit on the apartment and sometimes it was easier to just try to keep it clean. So he grabs the plastic sheeting along with the pen box and paper pad, setting it all out on the floor before setting her down.

Judith immediately begins setting it all up to her liking, squealing to herself as she does so and babbling to Daryl about everything and nothing. He lets her tell him about what she’s going to draw, letting her grab her favourite DVD and shove it into his hands for him to put on for them to watch. It’s one they’ve watched a million times before, but arguing never worked so why not just enjoy the songs that he had to admit were quite catchy? Heck Rick usually went to work singing, ‘Be out Guest’ and even Carl would sit and watch them sometimes even if the surly teen denied liking them. So he puts on the movie, then heads to the kitchen as Judith starts setting them up paper to draw on and sharing out the pens for them both.

The familiar sounds of Snow White starts up as Daryl brings in the plastic plates with snacks laid out on for her to pick at and sets them on the floor for them both. “Picnic for us Asskicker.” He points out, and then brings out the jug of juice for them to share. Getting to his knees Daryl lowers himself to the floor with her, using the plastic sheeting to cover the carpet as they begin drawing with the princess singing in the background.

“Dar-Dar, draw us like I am.” She tells him, leaning to tap at his blank paper and showing him her own. Mainly it’s scribbles in various colours, a smear of blue at the top and green at the bottom though, so she is getting better with it all. Judith takes a chubby finger and taps at Daryl’s paper, hitting at his hand and shoving a purple crayon at him eagerly. “Draw you.” She instructs and Daryl has always been good at following instructions.

“Alright draw me, got it.” He nods, biting his tongue between his teeth as he draws a purple stick figure on the paper. Daryl knows he’s not Da Vinci, but it’s decent enough and when he adds a scribble of brown hair and a mini crossbow, it’s actually a fairly decent representation of him. He’s sadly proud. “What next?”

Judith claps her hands, nodding and tapping the page next to his stick figure. “Draw me here.” She demands and Daryl is quick to comply, another purple stick figure, smaller, with a skirt on and a scribble of blonde hair on top. “Now daddy an’ Car’.” Judith tells him and Daryl is soon enough the proud artist of a mini stick figure family portrait. He gives Rick’s stick figure stubble and a cop’s badge on his chest, and Carl’s get that stupid hat on top of his head. It’s pretty good, so he adds a smiling sun as well as a blue sky and green grass at the bottom.

“What do you think? Masterpiece?” He asks her, holding it up for her perusal.

“Wassat?” Judith asks, titling her head before taking the picture to look it over.

“Means it’s a good picture.”

“Yeah, ‘s a masserpeas.” She agrees with a nod, taking the picture and setting it on the side table. “For the fridge. An’ mine too.” The toddler snatches her own piece of paper with colourful scribbles and adds it to the pile. Standing with her hands on her hips, Daryl sits back as she spins in place, humming to herself before seeming to decide their next plan of action. “Dar-Dar we be princesses now.” She nods, and in a second she’s in the toy box and yanking out what she needs.

Over the years Daryl has learnt not to protest when it comes to playing with Judith, and heck if it makes her smile, he’d do anything for her. So when the tiara is placed on his head and she giggles to him, he can’t help but smile in return. “Princess Daryl?” He asks and Judith is nodding solemnly as she sets her own crown upon her head.   


“Princess Dar-Dar and Princess Asskicker.” She declares, standing triumphant before hopping over with the plastic tea set in her hands. “An’ now we drink tea like proper ladies.” Judith tells him, taking the lid off the teapot and pointing for him to pour their juice into it. Of course he complies, and soon enough they’re sitting on the floor together, Judith in his lap as they watch Snow White clean the dwarves’ house and sing, eating apple slices and drinking juice from plastic teacups with plastic crowns on their heads.

It’s not the life he’d thought he’d have, but when Judith leans up to press a messy kiss to his cheek, Daryl knows he wouldn’t change it for the world.


	6. hurt!Daryl

**Drabbles and Thangs: If possible, anything Hurt!Daryl? (gen please) And by the way, LOVE YOU HIGGY!! :)**

When he stirs it’s through a layer of pain, like he’s had to stretch up and reach through before dragging himself up and out of it. Everything aches, Daryl can feel his head throbbing but the worst pain of it all is over his back. For a second he’s eight years old again, sprawled on the floor and trying to breathe through the fear of being lashed again. But there is no whistle of leather through the air, there is no loud breathing of whiskey tainted breath, and when he finally manages to open his eyes, he realises he’s on a mattress, not the floor.

“Easy, easy Daryl.”

Rick is there, in his field of blurry vision, leaning down next to him and placing a hand on the mattress beside his own hand. But not touching, because Rick knows he’ll flinch, he knows he’ll freak out and hurt himself worse if he gets touched right now without his permission. So Rick goes slow, waits until he’s blinking the world back in to focus and easing out a slight groan as he lifts his head. It’s only then that Rick lays a hand on his wrist, gentle, calming as he explains what happened.

“Daryl, you remember what happened?”

No, he hasn’t got a clue, He just knows he fucking hurts like a bitch and his shirt is off. Nothing good came when his shirt was off. Gritting his teeth he manages to shake his head enough for an answer, and Rick’s fingers are squeezing around his wrist for a second to show he’s been heard. It’s difficult to look around the cell he’s in, right now his motion is limited to what doesn’t hurt his back, but there are familiar voices around him.

“Looks like he’s going to need stitches. Again.” Hershel gives a small huff, one of laughter, it’s a joke, it’s a running joke between them to make light of a situation that isn’t funny. Because Hershel can read him and knows he doesn’t deal with speaking about this sort of thing very well.

“And he says I’ve got nine lives. He’s got to have gone through at least twenty by now.” Carol adds, and Daryl can only smile at her own brand of humour. She understood him too, and he knows that the three of them had a silent understand f how to take care of him when he was like this. There was nobody else helping out, even if he was injured and he knows that’s due to the three of them. They know he doesn’t like people seeing his scars and he’s grateful how they have stopped that from happening yet again.

“They’re going to start stitching you up now Daryl.” Rick tells him, fingers not letting go of his wrist for a second, giving him the support he needs when he’s blind to what’s happening behind him. Daryl sometimes compared himself to a skittish animal, fearful of every hand raised in his direction, particularly when he couldn’t see what was coming. A hand is placed flat on his back, Hershel’s, he can feel the worn pads of his working hands on his skin. Then another, softer, Carol’s, a mother’s hand. He flinches, but he just accepts the touch.

The needle doesn’t make him flinch. He thinks that should be awful to realise, but he’s been here before and he’s used to it. Instead he focuses on Rick’s fingers on his wrist, and blinks up to watch the other man’s face as he explains for him. “You fell, the fence fell on top of you, ripped you up pretty bad. It was an accident, but it caught you pretty bad.”

It makes him huff out a laugh, lying there on the mattress and barely blinking as the needle sews up the mess of his back. What are a few more scars to add to the collection? It hurts, of course it does, but it’s manageable, because he’s got his family here to help him through it. Carol’s hand on his shoulder, Hershel stitching him up and Rick holding his wrist.

Daryl remembers before, he remembers being a kid, he remembers being alone and he knows, even with the walkers and everything; this right now was better.


	7. Daryl is Merle's son, not his brother

**Hey, found your treasure trove of TWD fics on AO3 and currently reading my way through them. Love the wealth of different situations and circumstances you're putting the characters in! You hit on the theme of Merle looking after Daryl a lot, and that got me thinking - what if Daryl was actually Merle's son, not his brother? Perhaps Daryl doesn't even know this himself and grew up thinking he was Merle's baby brother. (I don't have a tumblr account, but I'm on AO3 as Sorran.)**

Merle is well known for giving people nicknames. Back at home before all the shit went down, it was very rare that he ever called anybody by name. Sometimes it was an insult, people were called pussy or dickhead, but other times it was his own sad attempt at affection. Well really there was only one person he treated with any kind of affection and even that was hard to see unless you knew how to read between the words.

He called Daryl a lot of things over the years. Sometimes he called him an idiot, or dumbass when he makes a mistake or misses a shot when hunting. Other times he’ll call him virgin when he’s teasing about Daryl’s lack of game with the opposite sex. He calls him Darylina when he’s being particularly bitchy about something and acting like a woman on her monthlies. But the name he uses most is one that is meant with affection.

Baby brother.

Honestly he barely even calls Daryl by name anymore, it’s just more likely he’ll call him baby brother when he’s talking to him. It’s natural, it’s friendly, it’s not an insult, it rolls off his tongue easily and Merle is used to it by now. It’s a shame that it’s a lie.

He doesn’t remember it fully, honestly he’d been thirteen at the time, and it had all moved so damned fast that it was all a blur. Thing is, he doesn’t even remember her name. Just remembers they’d done some stuff together and she’d gotten pregnant. Then nine months down the line, there had been a baby dumped on him and her parents had moved her out of state to start again. He does remember holding the baby though, the tiniest thing with the hospital tag around his ankle as he’d hollered at the top of his lungs. Dressed in blue with a shock of blond hair on his head, Merle had cradled him close, rocked him until he’d shut up and eventually named him Daryl.

The baby brother lie came pretty much immediately afterwards.

People didn’t like Dixons, they never had, but even if they were redneck scum, at least they weren’t inbred or having kids at the age of thirteen. Until Merle did. So it had been a necessity. They’d claimed Daryl to be his baby brother, his mother’s son, their father’s son, but as the years had passed Merle could see every way that it wasn’t true. Daryl was too sweet, too innocent and caring. He loved animals, he liked school, he was curious and turned his nose up at any illegal activities he saw. As he grew Merle saw how much he wasn’t his brother showing more and more.

So he made sure to call him baby brother every single day. It made the lie easier to remember if he repeated it often. Daryl was so much more to him than a brother, he was his and his alone, his in so many ways that he could never know about. So he repeats it, he ruffles his hair and calls him baby brother, drags him in to a one armed hug and then shoves him away with a laugh.

Because sometimes lies are safer to hold onto. But everyday he hopes that Daryl can hear the love he speaks with every time he repeats it. 


	8. Sharyl - fight and make up sex

**I'm giving you a little theme/prompt thingy: distracted by sunshine, and few bottles of whiskey they found... fighting and make up sex ensues! I shall leave the rest up to your imagination. I'm helping so much it's practically annoying! Sharyl**

“You wanna spend so much time with Rick nowadays, why not just go fuck him?”

“Heck at least Rick would let me kiss him in public!”

Shane knows that Daryl has always been jealous of his close friendship with Rick. There is a deep-seated jealousy there and even though Shane has promised that nothing ever had or would happen with Rick, Daryl still seems to be paranoid about it. Daryl just didn’t seem to understand that Rick was a friend and only a friend, but Daryl was so much more to him than that. Then they got to his side of the problems and the main difference between he and Daryl. He’d never been shy, Shane was always so forthcoming with his emotions and he showed them all the time, but Daryl was more closed off.

So it hurt Shane when Daryl would shrug him off in front of people, or not want to sit too close or even be next to each other. Everybody knew they were together, so what difference did it make if they kissed or not? Daryl was just stuck on his old thoughts, on the old way of living and how he’d been told that being gay was wrong. But this was their world now, they could live how they wanted and Daryl needed to stop thinking that anybody was going to care if they were two guys together in a relationship.

Daryl huffs, ready to walk away, always ready to run off and avoid a confrontation if he could. Shane however isn’t going to let the fight end, not when they’re so riled up. So he grabs at Daryl’s wrist, he tugs him closer, wraps an arm around his waist and can smell the mix of their whiskey breath as they press closer. “You’re a damned idiot Daryl Dixon, thinking I’d ever want anybody but you.” Shane tells him, and before he can lash out in any other way, he’s shoving their lips together in a heavy kiss.

They both groan, Daryl is grabbing at his shirt and Shane is able to use his heavier bulk to shove the other man into the wall. Daryl tastes of whiskey and anger, Shane knows he’s the same but he can’t stop his fingers from running over Daryl’s sides, tearing at his clothing and touching him all over. His man is perfect, strong and fierce, but the idiot never knows how much he means to him. It hurts sometimes, but then he remembers just how damaged Daryl was even before the end of the world and it hurts to know he’s not healing as fast as Shane would like.

“You’re my fucking everything.” He growls, pulling away from Daryl enough to rest their foreheads together. They’re already gasping, groaning together, he’s got Daryl pinned against the wall and the other man is already spreading his legs for him. They fit together perfectly, made to be together and Shane fucking knows it even if Daryl doesn’t. “You gotta fucking know that.”

Daryl doesn’t agree, but he whines when Shane shoves their pants down, wrapping a hand around both of their cock and stroking them in time with each other. Neither of them have had this with anybody else, but it’s so fucking much for both of them. Shane groans and buries his face in Daryl’s neck, licking over his skin, biting at him and tasting him as they fuck his fist together. It’s not perfect their relationship, but it works for them and he wants Daryl to know that this is it for him.

“I don’t want nobody but you Daryl.” Shane tells him, keeping him pinned, clutching his fist around them, hearing the way Daryl pants and arches against him. His partner’s fingers clench in his shirt, tugging on him, holding him and begging silently for more. “You’re mine and I’m yours.” He growls, rubbing their cocks together, stroking over the heads, and feeling Daryl leak onto him and vice versa. It’s intense, it’s real and it makes the two of them feel so alive.

Right now he’s pressed into Daryl, Daryl is smothered into him and it’s everything he’s ever going to need in this life. He adores this fucking man, he wants to world to know how much he means to him but Daryl will always be shy. But like this, when it’s just the two of them and he can make him open up, when he can tear down Daryl’s walls and have him groaning and panting for more while battling for kisses, it’s perfect. This is the Daryl only he gets to see and that’s special.

Rubbing over their cocks he can feel himself reaching that edge and it’s no surprise that Daryl is whimpering into his mouth, his small tongue quivering against his own as he trembles to his own orgasm. It’s rough, it’s real and it’s perfect, pushing Shane over that edge and making him grunt out a groan of pleasure at the feeling. He rubs them both, milks out their orgasm and glances down to see the mix of their come spattered over his hand and Daryl’s stomach. They are perfect together, they’re meant to be together and Shane can only hum in happiness as he kisses Daryl slowly, swallowing the pants and sighs of pleasure from him.

“You fucking idiot.”

Daryl smiles and lets out a small laugh that makes Shane smile and press their foreheads together again. 


	9. Daryl has ADHD

**For the drabble and thangs: maybe one where Daryl has adhd but he doesn't know and Rick notices and tries to convince him to take medication for it. (Maybe that would be easier in ASZ set, but if you feel like another set go for it) (I'm so sure Norman has adhd haha)**

“Take a seat Daryl.”

He snorts at that, one hand snarled around the strap of his bow and the other already clenching and unclenching as he paces back and forth. The carpet feels weird beneath his feet, he’d used to grass, dirt and gravel, road and the real world, not this man made shit. It makes him feel on edge, or more on edge than usual and he has to pace right now to let it all out. She asks more questions, Deanna prodding and poking at him for answers, wanting to know everything about them and how to spot their weaknesses. He hates that and spends the time invading her personal space, touching things on her desk and rolling them between his fingers.

It helps the nerves calm a little, but not enough. He still feels like he’s buzzing, the walls around the outside of this place, he can see them from the window and it makes him feel on edge. There are a lot of people here; a lot of people that he didn’t know, people that he didn’t trust and that makes the anxiety of it all worsen. Deanna keeps speaking to him, asking him questions that he’s not going to answer, wanting to get inside his head and find out how to get one over on him. He’s been on the receiving end of this kind of treatment before from his father and it was not going to work here.

Being allowed to leave helps, but even the fresh air of the outside doesn’t help much and he can’t sit inside the house for too long. So instead he sets up camp on the porch, he guts the possum, he checks his knife and his bow and he keeps himself busy so he doesn’t spend the time watching the walls constantly. Rick watches him, Rick’s always watching him and he can understand the other man’s paranoia over this all, because he’s feeling it himself.

“You’re worse in here.” Rick tells him, moving to sit beside him on the porch steps. Daryl doesn’t know what he’s talking about for a moment, not until Rick nods to where his leg is bucking up and down. He can’t sit still, he never has been able to, he’s always moving and fidgeting with something, but Rick’s right. Being in here, in these walls, it makes him feel worse and he feels the need to be constantly moving. So his leg jiggles up and down when he sits and his fingers spin a bolt between them idly.

“It’s fine.” He shrugs, because it’s always been a part of his life. But out there in the wild he could jump from thought to thought without a problem, because it meant covering all their bases and keeping them safe. His mind could hop from getting water, to hunting for food, to scanning for walkers and watching for enemies. It was okay to do that out there where things were hectic, but in here… “It’s just the way I am.”

Things were calm inside these walls and he just didn’t fit.

“Daryl it’s got to be tough to cope with it all.” Rick continues, not placing a hand on his shoulder, but it’s there in spirit. Daryl can appreciate that. “You know they’re got a pharmacy here. Medicine, stuff that can help with it all?”

“It’s just the way I am Rick. Always have been.”

“Daryl, you know this is a condition right?” Rick tells him and despite his fingers still spinning the bolt he makes sure to concentrate on what his friend is saying. He’s never thought of it as anything more than how he is, so it’s difficult to think of it as something that could be controlled. “It’s called ADHD. It’s pretty common.”

“Why does everythin’ have to have a name?” He asks, leg still bouncing in place, fingers still fidgeting, but he is still listening even if he’s not keen on what’s being said. “I can handle it Rick. Ain’t gonna be a problem.” Daryl tells him, but he can see the worry in his friend’s eyes.

“You’re worse in here Daryl, I’m just saying that maybe some medication could help make things easier in here for you.” Rick points out, but Daryl knows the real reason. If they’re going to stay here and make it work, then it meant all of them had to make it work. Because they couldn’t split up, so if one member of their family caused a problem, it was everybody’s problem. And if he got overwhelmed, if he couldn’t get a handle on himself and keep it under wraps, then he might cause a problem. Because he knew that sometimes it got too much in his head and he couldn’t keep himself from needing to just run and get it all out.

“No.” Daryl shakes his head, looking back to Rick and trying to be as reassuring as he can. “Not ever needed it, not going to have it. I can control it; I’m not going to be a problem. I can handle it Rick.” He tells him and he means it. They’ve not had somewhere permanent since the prison, but the prison was theirs first. This was someone else’s first and they had to make it work.

He had to make himself fit. It would be tough, Daryl knows that but he could make it work. And when Carl comes out of the house with baby Judith burbling on his shoulder, calm and even smiling with drool down her chin, he knows he’s going to find a way to make it work. For them. 


	10. Rickyl - Daryl and Rick move in to their new apartment as a couple

**Still taking requests? Rickyl. Unpacking/moving into/first night in their new shared apartment AU**

“This is pathetic.”

“It’s not a competition Daryl.”

“Thank God, otherwise I’d be losing.” He snorts, kicking at one of his boxes and pouting a little at the meagre stack of his possessions. Seven boxes. That’s all he had to his name. Seven boxes of crap, and none of it labelled like Rick’s were. His partner’s stack was huge, boxes of every size stacked into a mountain and labelled with the contents and what room they needed to go in. Honestly he’s confused as to how someone could possibly have so many things to bring with them.

All he had was a few clothes, the usual bathroom crap, his crossbow, his hunting stuff and a couple of books. What else could anyone possibly have? But Rick seems to have paperwork, trinkets, ‘sentimental’ crap as well as a whole heap of other shit. Like pictures. Photos of his kids that lived with his ex-wife, photos of friends, of him and the Police force, statues and things that just went around the place to make it ‘homely’. Daryl’s never had homely. It seems like an excuse to have crap about the place.

He helps as best he can with everything that’s being delivered. Rick had chosen all the furniture, and Daryl mainly spends the day setting up everything and building it all as Rick potters about putting his things where they’re going to live. Daryl was unpacked in half an hour.

He’s walking through the place that evening, trailing a hand over the mantelpiece ) they had a fucking mantelpiece), looking at the shelving unit with pictures on it and mini figurines and statues decorating the place. There is colour, it’s tasteful, it’s clean, there are still more boxes to unpack but all in all there is stuff everywhere. Rick’s stuff. This feels pretty one sided and Daryl has to go back to the wardrobe to check his clothes are still there and his crossbow and hunting stuff are still in the closet safe and sound.

It just feels weird is all. He’s used to the place he lives being pretty bare. Usually there was a couch, a TV and that was it for the main room. He had never had decorations, or anything that made it feel ‘homely’. This was new, it was different, not bad necessarily, but just something he’d never had. He wasn’t sure if he liked it or not. It seemed too nice for someone like him.

“Having second thoughts?” Rick comes up behind him, arms wrapping about his waist and chin hooking up over his shoulder. They’re just in the living room, the pair of them looking at the mantelpiece as Daryl tries to work out what the hell the statue is meant to be and why it’s sitting there in their new home. “It’s abstract art.” Rick tells him and Daryl makes a mental note to accidentally on purpose knock it over next week. Thing was ugly.

“Nah.” Daryl replies with a loose shrug, turning in Rick’s arms to face him, a much better sight than the abstract turd on the mantelpiece. “No second thoughts, it’s just different is all. Kind of doesn’t feel…”

“Like home?” Rick asks him and Daryl kind of has to shrug again. Because honestly, no place has ever felt like home. Not for him. Home has only ever felt like one thing for him and that thing was currently holding him close and trying to get him to stop worrying. Rick was home. Not a building, not a place, not possessions or abstract pieces of shit on a mantelpiece. Rick was home. “It will.” Rick tells him and presses a kiss to his lips.

It’s enough for the moment and when he pulls back Daryl is grabbing his hand, tugging for him to follow as he leads him into the bedroom. “Come on, I built the bed for us to christen it.”


	11. Daryl saves a bunch of orphans and accidentally gains a group of admirers

**Still doing that drabble thang? How aboot Daryl saves kids/teens who were holding out in a orphanage and then they idolize him whiles hes like omg no**

It wasn’t like he’d gone out there to fucking save them. He tries to explain that to the brats, but none of them want to listen. They’re a mixed bunch, a couple of teenagers about Carl’s age, some probably about eight or so and then there are the little ones. It had just been a run, a normal run with Aaron looking for survivors and they’d taken shelter from a rainstorm in a nearby house. He hadn’t thought twice about taking out the walkers growling around the outside, wanting the area clear before they took a rest.

Then they’d gone inside and found them all.

The kids had been huddling together in one of the back rooms, scared and trying to protect each other from the danger outside. They could deal with one walker, but a group had been too much and they’d taken to staying quiet and living off the supplies they’d had in the orphanage. Then Daryl had heard them, stormed through the back rooms until he’d found them and fuck he’d wished he hadn’t been wearing his vest.

“Are you an angel?”

“The fuck you talking about kid?”

“Daryl! Language!”

Snorting in derision at Aaron’s want to protect the kids from bad language when they stabbed walkers in the head to survive, Daryl ignores the brats that are following him around Alexandria. They’re new, just rolled in the gates with the pair of them this morning and now he’s got five kids tailing after him like his own personal entourage. They’ve had their chats with Deanna, but now here they are, not going to play with the other kids or settling in to their new house. Instead they were bugging him.

“Course he’s an angel, look at his wings.”

“Mr Daryl can I ride your bike sometime?”

“Aaron said you know a lady that makes cookies, can we have some?”

Spinning on his heels he faces the kids that are following him. The teenagers look wary of their new home, the girl holding the toddler while the young ones grin up at him with bright smiles. They look so damned interested in him and he has no idea why. It pisses him off, they weren’t his to take care of and besides, and it wasn’t like he had a good track record of keeping kids safe.

“Listen up bratlings and listen good. I ain’t no angel, so knock it off asking.” He ticks off on his fingers, glaring at them all in turn. They don’t stop smiling. “I don’t even let the people I like ride on my bike, so no you ain’t getting a ride on it. Not now, not ever.” He points out, ticking off another finger. “As for the cookie lady…” He trails off, glaring at Aaron and the way the other man smirks to him before wandering off to his own home and his boyfriend with no new kids in tow. “She ain’t got no cookies at the minute.”

The younger kids all pout, looking up at him like he’s kicked all their dreams to the dirt and then pissed on them for good measure. He sighs, running a hand through his hair before turning to be on his way, just about ready to get back home and rant his frustrations out to Rick. Then he can hear the crunch of gravel behind him and he’s spinning on his heel to glare at the five of them again as they pause in their following. “What the hell do you want from me?” He snaps again.

The older kids look a little abashed, the girl rocks the toddler and the boy gives a shrug. Then the two younger boys are still grinning to him, darting forward to grab his hands, tugging on him, yanking him backwards towards the house they’d been given. “Come check our house for monsters. God always sends his angels to protect his children from the monsters and now you’re here you should look at our house for us.”

It makes him grit his teeth, it makes him swear under his breath and try to yank his hands from their grip. But they’re persistent little shits and they laugh, they wheedle and continue calling him an angel and soon enough he’s being shoved and yanked in the direction of their new house. He’s pissed, he doesn’t want to go play monster hunter for these kids that weren’t even his responsibility. But they keep tugging and smiling up at him, calling him angel and then there’s a laugh from behind them.

Looking up he finds Carol heading their way, wearing one of those stupid cardigans and smiling so softly, like she’s nothing more than an innocent housewife in midclass suburbia. He hates it, but she comes up to them with a bright smile and crouches down to the kids when she speaks.

“Hi, I’m the cookie lady. Did I hear someone say they needed my angel to come clear their house of monsters?”

Daryl sighs to the heavens. Even Carol was against him today. The bratlings laugh and he fucking hates this shit. 


	12. Daryl & Tara & Eugene - growing friendship

**Can you write a Daryl/Tara friendship one and maybe one where Daryl interacts with Eugene? I would actually love for Daryl to have more scenes with these two come Season 6**

Life on the road is full of getting used to each other. Daryl has never been one for letting people in to his personal space, but some have earned that trust and were allowed in. Rick, Carol, the kids and most members of their little pieced together family were allowed, they had permission. But now they have new members and it’s difficult to ever think of getting to the point of letting them in.

The dream of safety in Washington is gone, now their lives are just from point to point, stuck on this road and trying to survive. He’s never had a big family, all he ever had before was Merle, but now it was like he’d suddenly gained new people that he wanted to protect. Almost like a couple of cousins he’d never met before today, but he knew they deserved to survive.

He likes the girl, Tara, she’s bright and sweet but with a core of steel that he gets to see every so often. She’s got a caring side to her, and takes it upon herself to make sure that everybody is drinking during the day. He swears she knows the level of water in everybody’s water bottles and won’t stop pestering until they’ve had enough to satisfy her. He’s even been on the receiving end of it before, Tara elbowing him in the ribs and tapping at the water bottle on his hip until he’d given in.

They’d spoken a few times, not really about much of anything, but she’d wanted to get to know him and heck, when you slept in the same five feet of space at night, she might as well get to know something about him. So when they’re walking side by side down the road, passing the time with small talk, he allows it and doesn’t head to be with Carol for some reprieve from it all.

“I’ve been fishing before, I know how to shoot and everything, but I could use some hunting lessons if you’re willing to teach me? I’m a good student.” She tells him, already with a bounce in her step as she plays with that damned yo-yo beside him. “I mean I’m not saying that you’re going anywhere, but you could probably use some help and I want to learn. Only so much scavenging can get us right?”

He shrugs, not really an answer, but an acknowledgement of her speaking to him. Still Daryl grips the strap of his crossbow tighter, holds it as they walk and can’t help but feel a little on edge about her walking so close so easily. Tara is nice, she’s friendly and open, he’s seen how close she is to Glenn and he respects that she was willing to help him so eagerly despite the world being a piece of shit. She was a good person, it’s just hard to remember that all the time when he’s so used to being around bad people.

Again her elbow nudges at his ribs, she rolls the string around the yo-yo before pocketing it and looking to him with a smile and a fist held out. “So teach me. I want to learn, I want to be more useful to the group.” He’s seen her look sincere before, and he remembers watching her hold out a fist to Rick before. It was her thing, her way of sealing a deal and he can accept that, he can accept her into his odd little family if she’s so willing to be a part of them.

“You’re useful.” He tells her, bumping his fist against her own, enjoying the way she smiles before continuing to walk alongside him comfortably. “We all are.” Daryl adds, before glancing in front of them to see the trudging form of Eugene. It makes a ball of anger rile in his stomach, but he keeps it to a low level, a tolerable level of frustration. “Well most of us.” He scoffs and it’s not long before there are three of them walking abreast.

“I am useful.” Eugene tells them both, eyes straight ahead as he says his piece and not looking the least bit ashamed of being a known liar amongst some of the most honest people that Daryl has ever met. “Sure I admit that I may not be the best in combat situations, but I can analyse a situation and MacGyver us something from our supplies to keep us alive.” Daryl does not understand how someone so supposedly intelligent is so bad at sounding humble. “I am an asset and you people are lucky to have me here. As much as you may not have liked my survival tactics, I have survived in this world just as long as you have.” Eugene points out and that just makes Daryl snort in frustration.

“You wanna continue surviving then you’ve gotta pull your weight.” He growls, remembering the first winter with the group, where everyone did their fair share of helping everybody else. The kid learnt how to survive and even Lori who had been eight months pregnant had done all she could. “Least she’s willing to make an effort.” He nods to Tara, noting her small smile at the praise but also seeing how easily it comes to her to solve the mere hint of conflict.

“Eugene could learn too.” Tara points out. “He’s smart, we all know that, so he could learn. And you’re right; we all need to pull our weight. We need to rely on each other, so that means we need to make sure that people can rely on us too.” And she’s not just talking to Daryl, she’s talking to Eugene and really Daryl wonders if the man would still even be with them if Tara hadn’t been there to help him make amends for it all.

There is a moment of silence; Eugene nods in understanding, accepting Tara’s words and Daryl admires how easily she can smooth over it all. Tara is a good mediator, she’s not emotionally driven to fight, she’s emotionally driven to keep things calm and to fix problems. He can admire that and he can see why she fits in so well with their group. As for Eugene? Well the man was smart he’d give him that, but he’d never gotten on too well with smart people.

“I’m only teaching if there’s no smart ass comments.” Daryl points out, finger pointing in the other man’s direction. Because if he’s going to be a teacher then he’s not having assholes for students.

Eugene nods but his words betray his agreement. “I will do my best to keep them to myself. But I cannot help mention if I see a solution to a problem that is better than your own methods.”

Tara sighs, rolls her eyes high to the heavens and glares playful to the other man. “Eugene-“

“I know, shut up.”

Daryl is trying to let them into his family, he really is. It’s just not as easy as everyone thinks.


	13. gen- Learning to deal with touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe a drabble about Daryl slowly learning to touch people more, as the group becomes closer and touchier, old social rules erode and they need confirmation of life around themselves? Also cuddle piles at night to fight the cold. Just way more physical affection than the west considers appropriate outisde of romantic relationships, because appropriateness has expired along with society?

Everything had changed after the infection spread. People changed really and as society crumbled, so did all the silly little rules that the world had been building up for centuries. Clothing was worn by whoever found it regardless of which sex it had been made for, domesticated animals were just food in a different packaging, and personal space was slowly becoming a thing of the past. Of all of them it was the last part that Daryl was finding difficult to adapt to.

He can understand it sure. When people kept dying you kept those you loved close, when the weather got colder you needed body warmth and really it gave everybody the security and safety they needed as nothing got better. So he doesn’t complain, not out loud, and he tries. God he’s fucking trying so hard.

But it’s difficult. A lifetime of lessons can’t be ignored so easily and really a lot of his reactions are just pure instinct now. They’re ingrained into his nerves, so it’s not his fault when he reacts the way he does. The hairs on his arms stand up, he’s flinching back at loud noises, at whispers too close to his ears and friendly clasps to his shoulders. It’s a lifetime of reactions that he cannot contain and though logically he knows it’s not his fault it doesn’t make it any easier to bear the sympathetic looks everyone else gives him when he does it.

The rest of the group have no problem with it, even Carol who he can relate to the most has always been the touchy feely type. So he volunteers to take first watch when they’re hunkering down to some rest and though he’s keeping an eye on the outside world too, he can’t help but watch as everyone else falls into place so easily.

They move naturally, not a discussion needed as they all move to the floor and begin curling together for warmth. Naturally Judith and Carl are in the centre of the group besides their father, the youngest of them protected by everybody else as they sleep. Rick curls around them both, Carl’s fingers curled into his shirt, Judith’s tiny body practically atop of his as they fall to sleep. Michonne sprawls beside them, a hand on the hilt of her blade, ready for anything as Carol lies next to her. Glenn and Maggie are curled into each other, practically one being as they rest.

Everyone is touching in some way or another. It’s not sexual, it never has been, it’s just naturally intimate. A hand here, a leg there, pressed back to back or simply using the other body as a resting place. They all curl up like a litter of pups in the cold, no discussion needed, it’s all too natural to need to be directed.

Eugene and Tara are close, bundled together in one of their few blankets, Abraham and Rosita next to them, on guard almost as they press closer to the main group. Sasha huddles down, almost hidden by the bulk of Aaron and Eric’s shared bodies. They all stay close, one limb linking to another person, no rhyme or reason to their positions, but just knowing it feels natural. It feels right.

At least it does for them. But he’s trying. Daryl is really trying.

So when Glenn is changing with him for watch in the middle of the night, extracting himself from Maggie’s warmth and climbing over the pile of bodies to get to him, Daryl doesn’t let himself think too hard about it. Instead he ignores his usual place on the edge of the group and takes a breath before stepping over the outer layer of their group. It’s a dainty operation, one that sometimes gets a murmur or grunt as he knocks into someone with his steps, but it’s worth it. He knows it’s going to be worth it in the end.

Chewing on his lip, Daryl decides on his spot and kneels into it, nudging Maggie back a little to get enough space for him to curl into. As if they were waiting for him, the group begin bringing him in. An arm is thrown across his ankles, Maggie presses up between his shoulders, Rick tugs him close enough to bury into his side and even little Judith mumbles a sound of acceptance and grasps at his hair with drool covered fingers.

It feels awkward. He can’t lie and say it’s the most comfortable he’s ever felt, but he’s trying and he hopes it’s working. There is still the want to curl away, the hairs on the back of his neck are standing up and there is the slightest jolt of worry in the bottom of his stomach that wonders when the innocent touches are going to turn violent. But he breathes, he listens to the sound of the group around him, so calm and alive, breathing as one, sleeping as one and not for a second thinking of him as anything but one of them. So he breathes. Daryl takes the time to unfurl his hands from being fists, lets himself relax a little and tries to get some rest.

He knows it’s always going to be difficult for him to let this happen, but it’s easier like this, when he has the control. They don’t mind, he doesn’t think they do, and there is a hope in the back of his mind that maybe one day he’ll be healed enough to do this when they’re awake. Maybe.


	14. Lycan Unit AU mini thing

Hello dear! Here's a prompt in the Lycan unit au if you feel like it: Shane takes Daryl (in human form) to the mall for the first time and Daryl's just terrified because he doesn't really like humans and doesn't know how to act.

He’s been living in the human world for a month now. One whole cycle of the Lady Luna’s dance through the night sky and he hadn’t expected it to be this hard. Daryl thought he would have gotten the hang of the human world by now, but everyday brings more differences that he can’t quite understand as easily as he’d expected.

Shane, the human officer that he was living with was trying his best to help, but he got frustrated over little things like Daryl scenting things and not understanding the need to shower and clean every single day. Humans seemed to have an obsession with removing their scent, with having fresh clothing and food from packages and not catching anything themselves. Despite claiming themselves to be a dominant species, they seemed to have found a lot of ways to allow themselves to be weak. They don’t hunt, they don’t live in large packs, they don’t even all have weapons to defend themselves.

It confuses him more than anything else, but he’s been doing his best to try and fit in. He does as the humans ask, he goes to ‘work’ at the station and obeys their boring rules, he searches out drugs and growls at people that they need to cuff. That made enough sense, but when it comes to the social aspect of human life, it makes no sense at all.

They’re going to the mall today. Apparently Shane has to buy something for Rick’s child since he’s aged another year, it’s a human thing to celebrate that and for whatever reason Daryl’s been asked to tag along. Most likely Shane didn’t want him at home alone again to chew on things, humans didn’t do that either. So here they were heading to the mall and he’d been asked to stay in human form, because Shane ‘found it easier to deal with him’ or something.

That’s the thing. Humans thought he was two different beings, they didn’t understand that he and the wolf were one. No matter which skin he was wearing, no matter if he was human or feral, he was Daryl and it was all one and the same. But Shane didn’t get that, Shane thought he was safer in this skin, thought he found it easier to integrate with the human world when he had fingers and was wearing clothes. Didn’t understand that he feels far more vulnerable and on edge like this.

Daryl still does as he’s asked and follows, but really he hadn’t known what a mall was and as soon as they step through the glass doors, he’s very sure that he didn’t like them. There are humans everywhere. Not one or two, but hundreds of them. They’re gathered about in herds, being noisy, not afraid of predators, not grazing, not doing anything other than existing. It makes him bristle in worry, because even if he sticks to the walls of this place he can never have an eye on all of them at once, he was the prey here and he remembers exactly how dangerous humans can be when they caught you off guard.

Shane doesn’t pause for a second, acting as if this whole thing is normal and calling for him to keep up. But he can’t stop from whimpering in the back of his throat, already panting heavily as he tries to catch up to his trainer. His human feet are trapped in these sneakers, skidding on the tiled floor, no purchase, no claws to get more traction and help him run if he needs to. His body isn’t made for defence in this form, and it leaves him feeling terrified of what could happen.

Humans are so noisy. They walk through the place, other humans bustling around them, pups, adolescents, adults and even elderly humans mill around, talking and being so loud. Some laugh, some are shouting and there is far too much noise for him to focus on everything all at once. Shops they walk past have music playing, there are TVs showing more humans dancing to music, some places have clothing in them and even more items that Daryl doesn’t see the point of. Shane doesn’t pause at all, and then they’re heading into a shop and Daryl can feel the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

It’s packed. There are humans everywhere, young ones shouting and laughing, some behind counters and Shane wants him to walk through all of them to find a stupid gift? Can’t he just take the pup on a hunt and let him make the killing blow or something?

Whining a little he reaches out to snag Shane’s sleeve, tugging the human back and stopping him from crossing the threshold. “What the hell man?”

“We gotta go in there?” Daryl asks, voice low, body hunched over itself, trying to seem smaller, less of a threat for the humans to take notice of. Body language means so much to wolves, yet no one around here seems to be taking notice of the silent language they portray. Shane is standing taller than him, looking angry, shoulders high and broad as he looks down at Daryl. He does his best to seem submissive, not meeting his eyes, his tongue running over his lips lightly as he ducks his head down further. “’s too much. Too many humans.”

Shane snorts out a laugh, shuffles on his feet and looks to be taking it as a joke. But then it passes, the human pauses and Daryl can almost feel the moment he figures out just how uncomfortable he’s feeling being here. It’s like for just a brief second, Shane speaks wolf and a hand is held out to Daryl, palm up, unthreatening, understanding. “You wanna stay out here?” Shane mumbles.

Daryl is unsure if answering honestly would be considered rude by humans, but wolves are only ever honest. So he whines, lowers his head to Shane’s palm and laps at it lightly in answer. He can remember his first contact with humans, can remember the hurt and the scars that decorate his back from that encounter. It’s taking time to get used to being around them all so suddenly after years hiding away in packland. But then Shane is giving a small sigh, using that same safe palm to pat his head lightly and Daryl thinks that maybe, just maybe they’re starting to understand each other.

“Stay here and keep watch. I’ll be back in a second, then we can go home and you can shift. If you want to.”


	15. Shadow AU tid bit

**I love when you take prompts! You're the best to write some sweet Sharyl...I would love to see a Sharyl centered drabble in The shadow AU. Kind of like Shane getting Daryl used to be touched or something like that. I love that fic!**

They allow Daryl to have his space at first. Shane is reminded of when he was younger and his dad had decided that every boy should have a dog. They’d gone to the pound and his dad had pointed out every single dog that had come to the front of the cages to see him and get his attention. They were fine, but he remembers when he’d seen Cookie.

She was a mongrel, nothing much to look at, medium sized and a mottle colour, hidden at the back of her cage and trembling. Shane can remember wanting her and refusing any other dog they saw. Cookie has come home with them, shaking, whining, with her tail between her legs and looking afraid of everything. They’d been told she’d been abused before and Shane had figured that she deserved a home more than others. His father hadn’t been pleased, probably expecting a pet that would be playful and bark to intimidate potential thieves. Instead Shane loved Cookie.

It had taken weeks. But he’d been patient for possibly the first time in his life. He hadn’t rushed her, he never pushed or forced contact on her, he just let her take her time. And it worked. He’d read to her to get her used to his voice, and eventually she stopped trembling. He’d sat with her and fed her by hand to show nice things came from him and after a few hours of fear, she’d begun eating. He’d sat with a held out hand and let her come to him until he could pet her. It took time, but eventually she trusted him, she loved him and she’d been happy and exactly like a normal dog because he’d taken his time.

So he keeps the same mindset with Daryl now.

Keeping his voice low and calm, Shane reads from the book he’d found, it’s nothing special, something old and boring, but it’s something to read and to get Daryl used to his voice. Sitting on the floor of the old hospital wing he’s patient as he can be, the door to Daryl’s cell is open, there is food and water beside Shane and everything was being left open to Daryl’s choices. It’s been a hard road, but he knows Daryl is getting better, already since the shower and clean up he’s been getting used to he and Rick’s presence.

However, if they were going to get him to join the group then they had to make bigger steps and that is what this is about. So Shane sits, he reads and he gives encouraging smiles when Daryl begins approaching him. It’s slow, every so often Daryl will pause and watch him as if waiting for an attack, but he does take another step forward, then another and another and soon enough Shane has the other man crouched on the floor beside him and looking over the book.

Pausing for a moment he stops reading, looks over Daryl and notes the way the other man looks a lot healthier since they’ve been feeding him and helping him out. He’s still underweight, but aren’t they all? The difference is that there’s a healthy tone to his skin now, and even the wound on his arm is healing up pretty well with no sign of infection.

“You okay there bud?” He asks and really the flinch doesn’t surprise him. Instead he sees it as just one of Daryl’s quirks and lets it happen. Daryl nods in response soon enough, slowly and carefully reaching out for a tin of peaches and scrabbling for the ring pull. Shane takes pity on him, moves slowly enough not to frighten him and opens the can for him, watching as Daryl dips his fingers in merrily to grab at the slippery slices. “Help yourself, they’re all for you.”

Daryl hums in delight and throws himself to the floor properly, digging in to the can of fruit eagerly and licking at the juice on his fingers. Careful not to move too suddenly, Shane inches closer, close enough that his thigh is touching Daryl’s lower back. He can feel the way the other man tenses, there’s a brief moment where Shane thinks he’s going to bolt but he hushes him, making soft noises of calm until Daryl relaxes and continues eating again.

“There we go that’s not too bad right?” He asks, mainly talking to himself because he doesn’t expect much of a reply from Daryl. “See? You’re doing so good Daryl, won’t be long until you’re moving in to the main cell block with us.”

It seems he must be doing something right, because Daryl nods again, calm and collected as he moves to drink the last dregs of juice from the can and doesn’t move away after he’s finished. He’s smeared in sticky juice, licking at his own lips and chin, and Shane decides that sometimes you have to take a chance. Taking up a handkerchief from his pocket, he covers his finger before licking at it, dampening the cloth before reaching out to Daryl.

Of course he flinches, leans back a few inches, but at least he doesn’t bolt. Shane is proud of that. “”It’s okay bud, just gonna clean you up a little bit.” He soothes, ever so gently dabbing at the corner of Daryl’s mouth with the cloth. Daryl stays completely still, on edge of course, but Shane can see the trust in his eyes. “Good job bud.” He mumbles and that seems to be all it takes.

Daryl leans into the touches, a look of adoration on his face as a slight blush crosses his cheeks. He doesn’t move away, but leans closer, close enough to Shane to clean him up properly and then close enough to actually lean against Shane’s side. It’s progress and even when Shane’s finished cleaning him, the other man stays where he is.

Shane is proud of Daryl, he’s proud of the progress they’ve made and how far they’ve come. All he can hope is that it will continue for the future.


	16. The Real Me AU - tid bit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Self harm in this chapter. Not graphic, but it's still there.

**daryl has a major meltdown (could be the real me au) for whatever reason, attempts to self-harm and rick is there to help. thank you for taking requests**

Beth is upset after he tells her, even if she doesn’t cry and acts strong and even gives him a hug, Daryl can tell she’s upset. Of course she has every right to be mad at him, it’s all his fault after all. Zach is dead because of him.

Things have been tough at the prison. He’s been trying real hard not to let it show how hard it’s been for him to get used to the new people that live with them now, but he knows the people that know him best are aware of how much it’s draining him. Shane keeps asking how he’s doing, Glenn is always checking up on him and Carol makes sure to takes walks with him and only him around the grounds every so often to help him out. He is trying though, he really is.

That’s what today had been about. Beth had mentioned how Zach had felt shunned by him, and how it would be better if he tried harder to let more people in to his personal bubble. So when the kid had volunteered, he’d agreed, they’d talked, there had even been some jokes and laughs and Daryl had thought the kid was alright. Then it had happened. And it was all his fault.

The guilt consumes him. Makes him shake off Shane’s questions about his well being and walk away from the cell block to hide himself away further inside the prison. It feels like he deserves to be there, hidden in the shadows of hallways they’ve cleared of danger but not made homely. It’s on moments like this when he remembers why he tended to stay away from people.

Things have changed. He’s let some in, his family, those he loved and would give anything for. But letting in more than that? He got reckless, he got stupid and now Zach had paid the price for his lack of concentration for a second. They’d been too busy joking and laughing, not focussing on the dangers that lie outside their prison fences and now Zach was dead because of him. It makes Daryl crumple to the ground, sliding down the wall of a dark hallway and choking on the sob caught in his throat.

He’d forgotten what mistakes could cost you nowadays and he thought he’d never forget. Losing Merle had been his mistake. Not finding Sophia had been his mistake. Every time he made a mistake people died and he’d been stupid enough to forget that. The tears fall heavily, cascading down his cheeks and falling into the dirt beneath him as he sobs, feeling the weight of everybody else’s death in his chest, choking him, constricting around himself until he can barely breathe.

It makes it feel too much again. The weight of the world bearing down on his shoulders until he’s falling, curling in on himself and finding far too many worries, voices, thoughts and questions invading his head. It feels too much. He hates it. He hates himself and that he can’t cope with something like this when Zach was fucking dead. It feels heavy and clogged, like there’s not enough room in his head to deal with it all and he’s so angry at himself for screwing up all over again.

Throwing himself back he doesn’t yell when his head collides with the wall behind himself. It hurts, aches like a dull throb, but it helps. Makes it shut everything else up for a split second. So Daryl does it again, not hard enough to split anything, but with enough force to get his head together and stop the guilt from consuming him. He cries alongside it all, tears down his face, sobs hitching in his chest as it all just overwhelms him.

His fingers comes up to curl into his hair, yanking on it, feeling the way it pulls on his scalp. Brings up the same ache as when he hits his head back against the wall and helps bring it all into easier to deal with chunks. He can cope with pain. Physical pain was easy. It left scars sometimes. They got infected sometimes. But they were real and in the open and could be fixed, taped up, cleaned and watched as they heal.

Emotional pain was harder. He couldn’t see it, couldn’t move it or fix it easily, couldn’t use his hands and previous knowledge to make it all work better in his head. Things were too hard. Too overwhelming to deal with when he couldn’t see them at it ached so much to keep it all inside and he doesn’t know how the hell everybody else does it. Yelling to himself, Daryl yanks again, feels a few hairs come loose in his fists, throws his body back and collides with the wall, feels the throb in the back of his skull silence everything that’s worrying him.

“Daryl?”

It doesn’t quite break through so easily. He’s caught in his own little world of tugs and hits and trying to drown it all out. Then there is a hand on his shoulder, tugging him away from the wall. A firm body moves onto the floor beside him, someone to rely on, someone to lean against as he’s pulled in. He doesn’t stop it, Daryl doesn’t let many people touch him, but he knows Rick’s smell, Rick’s body, the feel of the other man and how he’s used to doing this for him when he needs it.

“Shush, calm down now.” Rick mutters to him, voice calm, controlled, so understanding even if he doesn’t know the problem. An arm wraps around him, tugs around his waist to bring him into his lap and Daryl remembers woodland floors and dead little girls stumbling from a barn. He buries closer, face pressed into Rick’s shoulder and hands falling from being snarled in his hair to instead curling into the other man’s shirt. It’s safer here, quieter too and he snuffles a little as he tries to just breathe easier. “It’s okay Daryl. You don’t have to hurt yourself, we can get through this.” Rick tells him and it’s with a deep breath that Daryl is able to hear clearly again.

“’s my fault.” He mumbles, sniffing back more sobs and reaching up to scrub at his wet face. It feels awful, but Rick is here, holding him, easing him through it and he can breathe, he can hear and he can get through the anger and upset in his head to just feel Rick keeping him stable.

“No it’s not.” Rick reassures him, firm hand on his back smoothing up and down, the other moving to Daryl’s wrist, lifting his hand free from his shirt and nudging it up for Daryl to latch onto his thumb. He does so immediately, the gesture calming to him and it feels so good to know that Rick knows that. So he quietens, sucks on his thumb and let’s Rick be his tether to the world for a moment, safer than hurting himself that’s for sure. “It is never, ever your fault when these things happen Daryl.”

Daryl closes his eyes and just let’s Rick rock him a little. Just until it’s not too much anymore.


	17. Dixcest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Underage & incest.

**Dixcest**

What is Merle’s is Daryl’s too. Used to be when they were kids it was just the natural order of things. Merle was the older brother so he got things first. His old clothes became Daryl’s new ones when he outgrew them. His room became their room when Daryl was old enough to stop sleeping in their parents’ room. His bed became their bed when Daryl wanted comfort from the screams and yells that echoed through the walls of their home before being silenced with the sound of punches. But unlike most eldest siblings, Merle didn’t mind the loss of things that used to be just his.

So he coped with a toddler in his bed when he couldn’t sleep. He dealt with a child climbing under the covers in the dead of night when he was half asleep and joining him. He dealt with an unsure preteen whispering for him at 3am and asking if he could join him. And nowadays he simply lies on one side of the bed and waits for Daryl’s fifteen year old body to curl into his own as he settles for sleep.

It’s a routine, a rhythm as well known to the pair of them as the sounds of their father getting drunk in the other room to the sounds of the latest game are. So Merle lies there, tracing the same patterns in the mould on the ceiling that he always has and feeling the light huff of warm air on his neck from Daryl breathing. He knows it’s not exactly right for a fifteen year old to be sharing his bed, let alone his fifteen year old brother. But it’s not like their life is normal in any other way, so really he doesn’t much care anymore what anybody else would think of them.

They’ve always been close, him and Daryl. Had to be to survive really. When nobody else was going to give a shit about you, you kind of clung to the one person that did. He’s not sure where the line between familiar love blurred into something else, couldn’t pin point a time or a place, but it just felt natural for it to happen. They’d always been close, it just continued in more ways than one between them.

It felt normal for them to continue the closeness even after Daryl stopped being a kid. When kisses on the cheeks and getting in each other’s personal space should have stopped, it was the same kind of time when Daryl should have been learning about behaviour in private versus behaviour in public. But it never really happened. So Daryl would still lean into Merle’s side and end up hooked under his arm with his face buried in his neck. Merle wouldn’t think twice of hooking a finger into Daryl’s back pocket to steal a cigarette. They didn’t have boundaries from each other, only everybody else.

It means that on nights like this, Merle doesn’t think twice about shoving a hand down his boxers and rubbing over his dick when he gets hard. It means that he doesn’t flinch as Daryl’s breathing speeds up against his neck and his little brother mewls a little at his actions. Just feels natural to the pair of them to press closer together, for Daryl to squirm and wriggle until their underwear is shoved down and his baby brother’s cock is flush up against his own. “Me too Mer.” Daryl huffs, breath warm on Merle’s neck and not making any move to do anything himself.

Because Daryl knows Merle would do anything for him.

So his baby brother simply asks for it, mewls in need and thrusts his skinny hips against Merle’s own until he’s fisting them both roughly and getting them both grunting. Merle doesn’t ask what he’s thinking about, doesn’t really thinking of much of anything himself, simply rubs them together, feels Daryl’s panting against his neck and the way their cocks get slick with each other’s pre come as they stroke together. It doesn’t feel anything other than natural, nothing more than usual to gasp into each other’s space, to feel Daryl’s clammy, sweat stained skin against his own as they buck into his touch.

Daryl comes first, teenage inexperience and excitement overwhelming him into orgasm within minutes. His warm come coats Merle’s fingers, slicking them up enough to let him fuck his fist harder and harder, pump at his own cock until he’s coming too, staining their skin together and marking them both until you couldn’t tell whose was who’s. That’s the thing between them, they share everything. Right now they’re sharing this moment of pleasure, the warm panted breaths and weak thrusting of trembling hips is just theirs.

Because Merle doesn’t have anything of his own anymore. Daryl’s never had anything of his own in the first place. They were each other’s as much as their own. It wasn’t normal, but he didn’t care. Dixons weren’t never going to be normal anyway. It was just the two of them right now, nuzzling into each other, sharing pathetic noises that weren’t even words but they understood perfectly because they just knew each other. Merle barely felt like one person anymore, he was a combination of the two of them and was losing the want or will to find where Daryl ends and he begins.

But then there’s the feather light peck of a kiss to his chin, Daryl buries closer despite the clamminess of the heat and Merle doesn’t even consider pushing him away for a second. It’s just the way they are. They way they were. The way they were always going to be. 


	18. I don't even know

**Prompt-ness: Shane walking home from what ever bar he'd been at and being a little, teeny, tiny bit tipsy. He spots Daryl sleeping on a park bench. - inkinmytea**

It’s been a great night that’s for sure. A guys’ night out, that’s what it had been. Full of beer and shots and something that had been set on fire before he drank it and had burned on the way down enough to make him think he forgot to blow it out first. It had been awesome, full of laughs, full of them all just enjoying themselves and not even thinking about anything except who was buying the next drink.

 

So now it’s over and he’s stumbling his way home, weaving his way down the street with a whistle in the early morning hours. He’s pretty mellow right now, relaxed completely and glad to be heading to bed to just pass out and know that he can lie in bed all day tomorrow without a care in the world. Stretching his arms up he takes a shortcut through the park, barely having to think about where he’s going since the route is so well known to him. Trailing the pathway he startles when there’s a snort to his left, not the kind of noise he’d been expecting to hear among the chirps of early morning birdsong.

 

“Hey.” And he’s stumbling over, reaching out a shaky hand and pressing it to the nose of the figure he finds lying on the park bench. “Hey I know you!” He crows triumphantly, telling the world around him and grinning when the figure shoots up at his rude awakening.

 

“Fuck. Officer Walsh, what you wan’?” The other man sounds exhausted, rubbing a hand over his face and trying to sit up steadily in front of him. Shane snorts out a laugh and points again, this time missing the other man’s nose but gesturing in his vague direction.

 

“Yeah! Yeah I know you, you’re Dixon’s baby brother.” The guy he’s usually dealing with when it came to the older brother’s bail. It makes him laugh a little, because he wasn’t meant to think of work tonight.

 

The guy looks confused, but not offended as he replies. “Daryl.”

 

“That’s right, Daryl.” Shane concurs with a nod, moving to slide onto the bench beside the other man despite the look of affront on Daryl’s face at him getting so close. “Daryl Dixon.” He repeats, mainly to himself, or maybe in agreement, he’s not sure. “You’re sleepin’ on a bench. What the…what the fuck man?” And really Shane isn’t sure why he’s asking, or why he’s caring, or why the words are falling from his mouth when he should be heading home and not giving a fucking shit about Daryl Dixon.

 

There’s a snort for an answer, Daryl brings his legs up to the bench seat and wraps his arms around them like a kid, looking pissed at the world to Shane’s hazy vision. “Been a rough day.” Is all the answer Dixon gives him, along with a lazy shrug.

 

It’s not enough and Shane is shaking his head, well until things move a little too fast and he has to stop, steadying himself along the back of the bench and feeling himself sway slightly as he takes in the appearance of the other man. Dixon looks battered, fucking bruised as hell and like there ain’t any luck in the world for him. It’s putting a damper on Shane’s good night of fun and he can’t have that. Shaking his head again he remembers why he stopped and gets to his feet, reaching out to snag at the other man’s shirt, trying to tug him up too. “Nah. Nah man, nah.”

 

There is a pause, Daryl tries to tug his arm back but Shane is stubborn as hell. Leaving Daryl snorting out a laugh. “You should go home Officer Walsh.”

 

“Yeah well fuckin’ come on then.” He whines, not caring if he sounds like a damned kid, and tugging on Daryl’s shirt sleeve again. “An’ it’s Shane. Ain’t an Officer right now.”

 

“Alright, Shane.” Daryl scoffs, but doesn’t make any move to get up from the bench. “But I ain’t goin’ anywhere witcha.”

 

“Yeah, yeah you are.” He nods, yanking harder and using his free hand to gesture at the bench he’s just left. “Ain’t sleepin’ on a fuckin’ bench man. That’s shit. I got a couch you can have for the night.”

 

Daryl looks fucking shell shocked. Sitting and staring at him like he’s grown an extra head or something. When he finally blinks it’s with an air of confusion and tilt of the head. “You’re drunk Shane.” He finally mutters and Shane can only roll his eyes at that.

 

“Duh. An’, an’ it’s against the law to not follow an Officer’s order.”

 

“Thought you said you weren’t an Officer?”

 

 “You sassin’ me?”

 

 “No Officer.” But Daryl is smiling, and finally standing from that damned bench and falling into place beside him on the pathway home. It’s not easy, it’s not natural, but Shane doesn’t care because he’s still buzzing. And besides, this was a good deed surely? Cops were meant to do good deeds right? He doesn’t much care, he’s just glad to have someone to lean on as he begins the stagger back to his apartment.

 

“Good, now come on.” 


	19. D/s relationship Sharyl

**D/s Sharyl.**

Daryl thinks it’s pretty fucked up really.

If he had the money or care to go to one of those fancy head doctors, they’d probably have a field day with him. He thanks whatever God listens to Dixons that he’s never been to one. Because he doesn’t need to hear about how wrong it all is and how this is all caused by his crappy childhood and internal issues regarding his self worth. Not when it just feels so damned perfect.

“There’s my boy.” Shane coos to him, fingers combing through his hair, hand cupping his chin, thumb rubbing over his cheek lightly. It’s so tender, so calm and quiet, so far removed from everything he’s ever been used to when it comes to getting attention. Daryl can only hum in delight, tilting his head into the touch, enjoying the warmth of Shane’s palm and the easy way the other man takes care of him.

Buckles are undone from his wrists, padded leather cuffs removed and his arms slowly and carefully lowered down from where they had been tethered to the headboard. It aches, but it’s a good ache between his shoulder blades, and when Shane’s fingers come to rub over the muscles there, it makes it all worth it. Daryl finds himself sighing as he’s soothed, body relaxing completely after the intense session they’d just had.

Shane is his everything and even through the riding crop being brought down on the back of his thighs, he could feel how much the other man adores him. The welts throb a little, but Shane has it covered, scooping him up, bringing his body into his lap and letting him sprawl in a way that doesn’t add any pressure to the wounds. He has to admit that he loves the scenes they play, but this is his favourite part of it all; the aftercare.

He never knew it could be like this. That he could have someone who understood him so well. Shane knows he needs a firm hand, he needs the comfort of having someone control him, order him and take away all those decisions for him. A lifetime of insecurity left him lost, but Shane fixed that. Shane gave him rules to follow, a path to walk on and he knew how to succeed and what would constitute as a failure. It’s the easy layout to life that he needs and he loves it.

It doesn’t just cover their sex life either. Shane takes away the anxiety making decisions that used to get him caught up inside of his own worries. From something as simple as what to wear, to the bigger things like how to control his suddenly constantly coming in income that he’d never had before. Shane taught him how to live a normal life despite how broken he is, and made it work for him so easily.

Daryl new how to follow rules. He understood orders, he could follow Shane’s instructions and enjoy the soft touches and kisses he gets as a reward for succeeding. And now he gets to be pampered even more, with Shane taking care of him without Daryl having to feel guilty for taking up his time.

Soft hands hold him tenderly, his favourite blanket is curled about his body and Shane just cradles him on the bed for them to breathe together and ease through the aches that follow a session. His partner is understanding, curling pillows around them, leaving them in their own nest, a barrier between them and the rest of the world.

He’s safe here. Shane soothes his aches and pains, tells him how incredible he is and makes sure to get him everything he usually needs in these moments. His softest blanket that Daryl likes the fleecey texture of against his skin, letting him chew on his thumb and nibble there to get out any nervous energy left over from it all. He’s safe here, taken care of perfectly because Shane just understands him so well. There are no words needed from Daryl and he thanks God because he doesn’t like speaking in these moments. Instead he’s allowed to make the softest whimpers of enjoyment as Shane coos to him and repeats how incredible he is.

Maybe he’s just a sucker for any kind of attention. Maybe he’s so broken that this is the only way he’ll allow himself any affection, after having gone through pain. Maybe he’s just found a niche of life that works for him and Shane perfectly. Honestly Daryl just doesn’t care about anybody else in the word or their opinions of him. Because right here and now is where he wants to be and what he loves the most.

 


	20. Rickyl - Lady and the Tramp, you know the scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuzza once asked for this as a prompt. Unfortunately I didn't get to finish it before she deleted her tumblr. But I still hope she will get to see this little bit and enjoy.

“Said it was being neighbourly.” Daryl shrugs as he sets the bowl on the kitchen side. The wrap covering the top is stained red from the sauce, some strands of the pasta sticking to it before peeling off and dropping down. “Made too much for themselves, said they didn’t want it to go to waste.” He supposes it’s nice of Aaron and Eric to give them free food, heck with the way the world was now it was practically a sign of, ‘I wish you not to starve to death’ and for him that was pretty accepting.

“Makes sense.” Rick shrugs, still staring out the window, still wary, still unsure of what the hell these people in this safe zone want of them. Daryl gets it, he really does, because just being in the same cage as these people is enough to put him on edge. But he is trying and that’s got to count for something. “Food isn’t exactly a luxury these days.” They all know that, weeks on foot and starving to the point of illness since food had been so scarce.

But they were here now, this is where they were, this was the lives they were living and he wants to stop Rick from looking so on edge all the time. If he’s trying then they all have to try. “You eaten yet?” He asks, glad when Rick pulls away from the windowsill to follow him into the kitchen.

“No. Heat it up.” Rick tells him, running his fingers over his stubbled chin, probably still trying to get used to the lack of a beard. Already Daryl is heating up the oven, removing the plastic wrap before putting the bowl of pasta inside. It’s strange how something so simple, so normal can feel so strange now. The luxury of being able to heat food without having to risk making a fire was still new to him. “I know you haven’t eaten yet either, you’re having some.” Rick cuts off his thoughts, getting his attention with a knowing smile.

Even if they’re behind walls and safe now, they still look out for each other. It makes him remember that they’re family.

“Damn right I am. Had it before, know how good it tastes.” And they could joke and laugh, smile and take their time to do things now.

It’s pathetic how the smallest things can make them feel more human. Even on the road they’d been the same, trying to hang onto whatever sense of the old life they had. It was why they carried around the music box, even if it took up space and added weight to their precious supplies. Sometimes it wasn’t about staying alive, it was also about staying human.

The silence is easy between them, and Daryl knows he’s a man of few words, so he appreciates that Rick doesn’t talk just for the sake of talking. They can sit like this for a while, the only thing that’s changed from the last few weeks is the setting, but they’re still the same people. It’s nice to know that despite his insecurities about all of this, it’s still Rick here alongside him.

Rick leans back on his chair, head cocked to the side and a thoughtful look on his face. “You know, we’ve been here a week now, and we haven’t really had a proper meal.” He points out and Daryl gives a half shrug as he answers.

“Thinking of throwing a dinner party now Officer Domestic?” He smirks, because this is good, this is healthy to be able to breathe and not worry about things the entire time. People weren’t made to be a fearful species, they weren’t made to be constantly high on the adrenaline of running and fighting just to survive. Maybe he’s not completely comfortable with Alexandria, but he’s liking this aspect of it, this leeway they’ve been given for the moment.

“More like a family meal.” Rick continues, a small smile that is growing by the second, a real smile that needs to be seen more often. “I mean, we could now. We could actually sit and all eat together instead of someone always having to be on watch.” Like they used to before at the prison, like people used to do before the walkers and the infection and everything.

“Sounds good to me.” Sounds more like perfection, but he doesn’t want to say that. Don’t count your chickens and all that bullshit. “When you thinking?” He asks instead, standing when the oven beeps, taking out the now warmed up food and setting it on the table between he and Rick, a fork each so they can begin eating.

He watches Rick as they begin to eat. The other man is like himself, eager and thankful for every meal that doesn’t taste like dirt. They’ve been starving for far too long now, and Daryl knows that neither of them can eat the amount they used to before. Something like this, pasta with tomato sauce, herbs and seasoning, it’s all too rich and too much, but heck they’ll make the most of it while they can. Rather feel ill from eating too much than to go hungry again. If Alexandria was just a stop on the road then they should pack on the pounds while they could.

The spaghetti tastes just as good as he remembers, with real flavour and not with a lingering taste of dirt and charcoal from being roasted over a fire. It’s real food, hearty food that can really be enjoyed and not just eaten because they needed the energy. They both eat slowly now, enjoying every second and not feeling the need to rush in case walkers should come cut their meal short.

“Tomorrow.” Rick decides with a firm nod. “Tomorrow we’ll all sit and have dinner together. Bring all our rations together, get the table and chairs from next door and it’ll be a real family style meal. Everybody gathered around the table, all squeezed in, knocking elbows, passing food to each other.” Rick is smiling, looking so relaxed for the first time in a long time and Daryl thinks it’s the best idea he’s heard in a long time if it’ll get Rick to smile like that again.

“Alright. Tomorrow.” He agrees, scooping another forkful of pasta into his mouth. Rick does the same with a nod, the two of them eating together comfortably. It would be a good thing. Some of them had become family through sheer circumstance, not through choice and it would be good to actually spend time together. He knows it’s a must, but having he, Rick and Carol meeting behind everyone else’s backs, it feels a little unfair to everybody else they care about.

He’s too busy musing to notice anything as he tries to slurp up the last strand of spaghetti, chewing down the long strand of pasta, leaning to his left as Rick leans to his right to get the end of his. It’s not until he turns his head, and his lips brush a pair of lips just as chapped as his own, that he realises they’d been sharing the same strand of spaghetti. Rick doesn’t pull away, doesn’t do anything except pause as they stare at each other. Their noses are touching, every breath he takes is shared with Rick and he can feel the heat rise to his cheeks in a second.

It’s with a forceful bite that he cuts through the strand between them, slurping it up noisily and swallowing his mouthful. Rick huffs out a laugh, finishing his own mouthful, but not leaning back out of Daryl’s space. They’re comfortable enough with each other for it not to bother him, and he doesn’t really think anything of it, not until Rick’s lips press at the corner of his mouth. Daryl for his credit, doesn’t pull back, he just freezes for a moment, feeling Rick’s lips press against his skin before a tongue swipes over the corner of his lips.

“You had some sauce there.” Rick mutters to him, not pulling back from his space, not apologising, just stating fact, as confident as ever despite the situation. Daryl finds it helps, it eases the way forward as he gives a shrug, not pulling away from the other man’s space, but rather leaning into it. “Didn’t want to waste it.” Rick almost purrs and Daryl huffs out a small breath of acceptance, even if he knew that was bullshit.

Moving closer he drops his fork, lets his own tongue slip out to rub over Rick’s lower lip, curls his fingers into the other man’s shirt and hums out a small sound of mirth. Rick tastes of spaghetti and home, the edge of a life on the road mixed with the comfort of their lives now and despite everything changing around them, it’s good to know that Rick is always going to be a constant for him to rely on. “You had some too.” He mutters, enjoying when Rick pulls him a little closer, crushes their lips together and kisses him properly for a few moments. “You’re a messy eater Grimes.”

Rick laughs, actually laughs in reply and it’s not a laugh of despair. But one of mirth, one of happiness and fun and actually enjoying himself and their stupid moments like their that they can share. It’s not the perfect life, and they’re both unsure of Alexandria, but they can have these moments now, and it makes all the worry worth it.


	21. Jeryl, Darus, whatever you call Jesus/Daryl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why not play around with this ship?

Daryl knows he’s a pretty fit guy. It’s not like he’s always doing crunches or lifting weights, but a lifetime of hunting, and needing to keep on his toes means he’s pretty decent fitness wise. He’s got decent muscles, he’s pretty trim and heck the world today meant you kind of had to stay in shape to survive. But right now he’s fucking struggling and he hates it. He’s not wheezing, not yet, but he’s breathing heavily, his legs are burning but he’s not going to stop and give in. Not to this prick.   
  
“Come over here and make me.” That prick had said, with a grin on his face and skip in his fuckin’ step. It had pissed him off. All Daryl had said was for Jesus to shut up with his damned skippy attitude. Constantly looking on the bright side of things, so damned cheery and positive when they were discussing having to murder people to survive. Sure, he gets needing a good attitude, but there was only so much he could take. It had been pissing him off, as had a lot of things lately, but the other man just seemed to live to get on his last nerve. So he’d snapped, told him to shut up keep flapping his jaw, and now here they were.  
  
Fucking skinny prick was fast. Zipping out of his reach every damned time he got close, ducking and weaving, bolting away and laughing as Daryl missed him for the third time. He knows others are watching them, probably laughing as he tries to chase Jesus down, snarling to himself and hating how the other man can be so close to his grasp before slipping free in a second. It’s like a game of cat and mouse, and the thing that really pisses him off is how damned easy the other man makes it look. Jesus isn’t panting, he’s not having to bend down with hands on his knees to catch his breath, or looking like he’s got a stitch in his side. Making it’s the cigarettes finally catching up with him, but fuck he is done with chasing for the minute.   
  
Thing is, that’s not where it ends. He’s panting, hunched over, spitting to the ground when the shadow falls over him. Daryl doesn’t even need to peek up to know who is standing there, probably still looking cocky as fuck. “Give up?” Jesus asks, and when Daryl does peek up he’s right, there is a smug look on his face.   
  
“Fuck you.” He replies, panting in deep breaths to get his bearings back.   
  
Jesus bends over, to his level, teeth peeking out from beneath that beard with the most annoying grin. The other man is smiling, not looking like he wants their chase to end anytime soon. He doesn’t know what the hell this thing between them is turning into, but even if he’s got a stitch burning in his side and his legs feel like jelly, he still wants to chase him. “No. But I might fuck you if you’re lucky.” Jesus smirks, leans in close enough to press a kiss to the tip of Daryl’s nose, before bracing hands on Daryl’s hunched shoulders. The nimble little shit fucking leap frogs over his hunched form, vaulting over him and away before turning to job backwards and away from him. “But like I said before. Come over here and make me Daryl.”


	22. Sharickyl - The test

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From tumblr mini prompts, number 27 "I'm pregnant."

Daryl has been feeling off colour for the past few weeks. At first it had been little things, just a tightness, an ache, cramps maybe across his stomach when he stayed still long enough. Now it’s been long enough that he’s worried. So he’s in the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the bath, and deliberately not looking at the plastic stick sitting on the sink. He’s sure it’s been long enough now, the result is probably obvious and waiting for him to read it. But he can’t. Not yet. Instead he’s sucking on a cigarette, trying to ignore the way his fingers tremble around it as he exhales. Sure maybe he shouldn’t be smoking, but fuck it, he needs something to keep him from breaking down right now.

It had been Rick who had suggested it. When Daryl had refused to go to the doctor but was still complaining about feeling ill. Said Lori had suffered from similar symptoms when her body had been preparing itself for carrying a baby. Fuck he doesn’t even want to think about that word right now.

“Daryl?” Shane calls through the door, knocking at it, making Daryl flinch a little in response. Really it’s restrained for Shane, Daryl knows if he wanted in he would have knocked the door down by now. “Hey bud you okay in there?”

Really he’s not sure of the answer. He’s not okay, that much is certain, but he’s not sure what he is feeling. Lost. Confused. Terrified. A mix of all of them at the same time, making his stomach clench and roll, leaving more nausea tickling at the back of his throat and making him gag.

“Shane leave him alone.” Rick hisses from beyond the door, outside of Daryl’s bathroom sanctuary, and keeping things calm. He knows they’re just worried about him, but right now he’s just a bundle of nerves and fear. “Give him a minute.”

A minute. Like that’s going to make everything better if he just has a minute to think. Closing his eyes he takes another toke of the cigarette, blowing smoke out through his nose and trying not to think too much on things. The ash falls from the tip, it burns its way down to the filter, and soon enough there is no more cigarette left to stall him any longer. He has to look. He has to find out the answer to the question hanging over all three of them.

They’ve been together for a while. The three of them. A team Rick calls them. A threesome he thinks. A porno waiting to happen Shane always grins to him. It works. The three of them work together, Shane and Rick keep him steady, guide him through this relationship and let him still be Daryl enough not to feel trapped. He knows they’d experimented together before him, two guys close as hell, kissing and learning together what the liked, best friends and better lovers. Then he’d fallen into the equation and somehow it had worked. Despite Shane and Rick being so close, there was still a Daryl shaped gap between them that they’d tugged him into. He doesn’t want to let them down. He doesn’t want them to kick him out of the one thing he’s always wanted.

But he’s not a pussy. Not scared of anything. So he tosses the cigarette butt out the window, and snatches up the plastic stick. At first he just clenches his grip around it, feels the plastic creak beneath his fingers, like he could just snap it and let whatever it said mean nothing. But it’s the answer they’re all waiting for, the one that could potentially change all of their lives for good.   
  
He’s worried, he’s nervous and he’s stuck staring at the little damned window that tells him his fate. Two lines, clear as day, no mistake. His stomach rolls again, and he places a hand over it, wanting to settle it, and maybe just trying to feel if it is true. There is no difference there, but he knows just because you can’t see something, doesn’t mean it’s not real. The test has told him the answer, and now it’s only fair the other two people in on this hear it from him. Taking a deep breath, he unlocks the door, inches it open and glances up at the two men hovering outside.

They look worried. Rick is concerned that much is obvious, with his head tilted to the side and eyes full to the brim with questions. Shane looks on edge, one hand midway through rubbing through his hair, and the other on his hip. Both of them are watching him, waiting on him, looking to him for answers. He’s worried about their response, worried about being kicked out of this, and so damned afraid of being alone again. But they deserve to know. They deserve to make their own decisions about what they want to do with this whole thing. So he doesn’t want to make them wait, he wants to do it fast, rip himself away from them quick, like a band aid.

“I’m pregnant.” He meets their eyes, because he’s not a pussy, but that doesn’t mean the little plastic test isn’t quivering in his grip still.

They could leave him. They could easily shove him aside, leave him and this new problem to the wayside and carry on just being a pair without him. It would be so much easier for them to kick him aside, and to abandon him now. Daryl knows it’s all up to them now. The rest of his life was going to be shaped by Rick and Shane’s response to this.

They’re smiling.


	23. Dixcest - Dumb ideas

Daryl has been following Merle since he’d learnt to walk. His first steps had been made with him holding Merle’s hands for balance, and ever since then he’d been using his brother as a crutch to keep himself going. Maybe it’s because he didn’t have any parents who cared, maybe he’s just a clingy little fuck, but ever since he can remember, it’s always been he and Merle. His brother is his idol, his hero, his best friend and the most annoying fuck he’s ever met. Merle is one of those people you love to have around and hate to have to deal with. Sometimes Merle is an asshole, he can be mean, can be a bully, and can make Daryl curse and want him to fuck off. But then when he’s not there, he spends the whole time wanting Merle to come home.

They’re thick as thieves the pair of them when they’re together. The Dixon boys. Always together, always causing trouble, always being loud, as a pair. Daryl knows the town has an opinion of them, their surname has a stigma attached to it that there was no way of shifting. But he doesn’t care, because when it’s he and Merle, they’re more than just Dixons.

The bar is jam packed, the usual crowd around the place, but they’re by the pool tables, their usual crowd downing beers, arm wrestling, and betting on each other. Daryl is technically still underage, but he’s been drinking since he was fifteen years old, and nobody here was going to tell Merle’s little brother that he couldn’t have a beer or three. He loves hanging out here at the bar. Maybe it’s because he’s still young, and there is an element of breaking the rules to it all. Seventeen years old and he’s already following in Merle’s footsteps, hanging out with the same crowd, downing beers, cheating at poker and gambling on pool like one of the guys. Just like Merle.

The gang know him, they know who he is, they know what he means to Merle and they all know the Dixon brothers are close. It’s why they don’t even look twice when he’s climbing into Merle’s lap, wrapping his arms around his brother’s neck and hanging off of him happily. The boys may know what they do together, but no one talks about it, nobody questions it, and no one tries to stop them. Daryl knows it’s because the last time someone did, Merle made sure he was eating through a straw for months. People don’t question the Dixons and the things they do anymore. It just wasn’t worth it.

So when he hangs off of Merle, with his brother’s arm around his waist and tugging him closer, the boys don’t even stop in their conversation. Daryl doesn’t care what they have to talk about, probably about another deal going on, or some bullshit, he just cares about getting Merle’s attention. So it’s easy for him to ignore the guys’ voices around them, and to just focus on burying himself in Merle’s neck. His brother smells of home, of him, and bed, and every filthy little thing they get to do together. It makes him smile, and before long he’s biting on his lip, and pressing closer into Merle’s heat.

“Mer, I’m bored.” He whines, every bit of little brother leaking out with each word. Clinging on to Merle he knows the guys are watching them, there is always a curiosity in their eyes, because nobody messes with the Dixons, but nobody understands them either. They wonder and guess, but nobody could ever understand them. His voice lowers to a purr, and already he can feel Merle’s grin before he sees it. “Play with me?” He asks his brother, and he knows Merle’s answer before he says it.

“Play with you?” Merle huffs, but he’s smiling, slinging an arm around Daryl’s waist and tugging him nearer before burying his smile into his hair. “Now why would I wanna do a thing like that?”

It makes Daryl huff. Makes him whine and tug on Merle’s shirt to get his own way. It’s a game. It’s their game and he loves it. So he pushes their bodies closer, nips his teeth over the skin of Merle’s neck and pouts when he pulls back. “Because you want it. Come on Merle, I wanna play.” He whines, fingers trailing down to tug at Merle’s belt, at his flies, and grinning the whole time as he slowly slips his way off of his brother’s lap and to the floor beneath the table. “Wanna play here.”

Merle is laughing, one hand slipping down to weave into Daryl’s hair, petting him lightly before nudging for him to go further down. “This is without a doubt the stupidest plan you’ve ever had.” Merle tells him, but he’s still smiling, still spreading his legs and letting Daryl’s fingers slip to get his cock free beneath the table. Daryl knows everybody must be watching, the guys as usual trying to understand them, trying to get a look at the dirty damned Dixons. He’d be ashamed if he didn’t know they wanted it too. If he didn’t love it so much. Already he’s lapping at the head of Merle’s cock, mewling happily at getting a taste, before Merle’s grip is tightening and he’s being pressed slowly down to swallow his cock as deep as he can. “Of course I’m in.” Merle groans out, and Daryl fucking loves being the reason for that sound.


	24. Dixon brothers fluff

“Why do people get married?” He asks his brother. Eight years old, and clinging on to Merle’s shoulders in a piggyback ride through the woods. They’ve had to leave the house for a while, not because they’ve been told to, but because it was safer. Mom and Dad were fighting again, screaming, shouting, throwing bottles and insults around and not caring who they hit. So Merle had grabbed him, his nineteen year old brother hooking him out of the house and slinging him onto his back and letting him cling on like a monkey as they head out to the woods.

The rest of the world seems peaceful compared to the Dixon household, birds singing in the trees, squirrels running about the place and the old stream trickling through the reeds. It’s a lot better than the damned place they call home. The question has been rolling around in his head for a while, especially when it came to school and the other kids in town. He knew moms and dads got married and had kids, but all the stories he’s read and things the teachers say makes it seem like it should be fun, or at least happy. Their mom and dad never seem happy, they always tell each other how much they hate each other and don’t want to be together anymore.

Merle huffs beneath him, hitches him up higher and steps over a fallen log in the path. “Because they’re idiots that’s why.” His brother tells him, sounding like a proper grown up and not like the brother who still plays make believe with him sometimes. “Stupid idiots who believe in fairy tales and happily ever afters.”

That makes him frown. Maybe he’s too young to get it. Usually that’s what Merle tells him. Clinging on to Merle’s shoulders, he tries to think it all through. The other kids at school said people in love got married all the time, because then they could have babies and be happy. It was supposed to be a good thing, and one of the girls had been saying how much fun she’d had being a bridesmaid at her cousin’s wedding the past weekend. Everybody else seemed to like the idea of it, except for Merle.

“Ain’t people ‘sposed to want to get married?” He asks, picking at a loose thread on Merle’s shirt. “Everybody else says it’s a good thing.” He shrugs.

His brother sighs, looks up to the skies above them and Daryl has a feeling this is one of the usual moments that he’s too young to understand. “I guess.” Merle adds, trying to look over his own shoulder to him. “Maybe it is a good thing for other people. Maybe you’ve just got to marry the right person. Someone you like would be a start.”

Daryl has to agree, if you wanted to be married to someone for the rest of forever, you should probably like them. “Like your friend?” He asks.

“Like your best friend probably.” Merle agrees, nodding along as he continues to walk. For a moment there is silence between them, but no silence in the woods around them. Everything else is alive and real, the nature around them doesn’t fight or scream, it just carries on peacefully. He likes it out here, and he likes it even more when it’s he and Merle out here.

Thinking about it, any time he spends with Merle is pretty good. He’d always rather be with Merle than anyone else. His brother was always nicer to him than anyone else, Merle might yell at him but it was only to make him better. Like when he tells him to quit crying and toughen up, and tells him he’s proud when he doesn’t cry after being hurt. Merle is the only one who helps him out when he needs it, and his big brother doesn’t even mind if he needs hugs after a nightmare. Really, he doesn’t even think he likes half of the kids at school as much as he likes Merle. His big brother has always been there for him, always looked out for him and made sure he was okay. Even like today when Merle would just take him out of the house and away from the yelling.

Really he thinks Merle is his best friend.

Smiling a little he hangs on to Merle with one hand, while he reaches into his pocket with the other. Sure he hasn’t got a ring or anything like the guys in the movies do, but he has got something pretty good. Possibly better than a ring. “Mer?” Reaching forwards he holds his clasped hand out to his brother, nudging for Merle to reach up for his gift. Opening his hand he lets the warm, sticky, plastic wrapped candy drop into Merle’s grip, ready for his brother to have. “Marry me?” He’d been saving the candy for later, for when things were really bad, but he’d rather give it to Merle now, and he thinks maybe that’s how you should feel with someone you wanted to marry.

Like you’d rather they have the last candy instead of you.

Merle laughs, but it’s not a mean laugh, it’s a good laugh, a fun laugh. It makes him smile, and when Merle glances back to look at him, he knows maybe Merle thinks he’s his best friend too.

“Yeah alright, I’ll marry you.”


	25. Rickyl - Hurt meme, "Why won't you eat?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the hurt meme on tumblr, trying to practice writing and get back into the swing of things. "Why won't you eat?" Rickyl.

It’s been a month. An entire month since the hospital, since Atlanta, since losing Beth. They’ve been surviving. Not thriving, not doing anything more than just getting by day to day. Everything they can use is on their backs, and everyday they just keep walking. Rick doesn’t know what they’re searching for, all he knows is that they haven’t found it yet. No other humans, thankfully, but nowhere they can settle either. The walkers are everywhere, always following them, always waiting, never giving them enough of a reprieve to rest. So they keep walking, they keep moving, and he’s worried for them all.   
  
But he worries for Daryl the most.   
  
Nobody else sees it. He can’t blame them, they all have their own selves to look after and think of, and Daryl hides it very well. A part of him wonders if it’s not the first time he’s done it, but that just brings up more questions that he’ll never ask, because he knows Daryl will never answer them. Rick can see the burns, he can see the dark circles hollowing out Daryl’s eyes, and he can definitely see the way his clothes are hanging off of him more and more each day. They’ve all lost weight on the road, but Daryl is losing the most, with his muscles beginning to lose their tautness, Rick can feel his ribs when they lie together at night, and he’s seen the new notches being made on his belt to keep his pants up. It’s worrying, and it’s only getting worse.   
  
Food is scarce. He knows that, but they’re scraping by. Daryl is hunting out what he can, even if it’s just a couple of ragged looking squirrels, and they split it between them evenly. Or they’re meant to. But he sees it. When Daryl will half chew a mouthful before feeding it to Judith. When Daryl tears meat from bone and gives more to Carl. When Daryl acts like he’s taking his fair share when Rick knows it’s more skin and gristle than any substantial meat going into his mouth. It’s meant to be hidden, he knows that, so he doesn’t make it a group wide issue, instead he keeps it between the two of them.   
  
“Why aren’t you eating?” He asks one night, when they’re curled together on the edge of the road, sharing body heat and so much more. Everybody else is asleep, aside from those on watch, and besides, after living in each other’s pockets on the road, you learnt when to feign being deaf to give people privacy. Daryl squirms in his arms, a tense back pressed against Rick’s chest, a man used to keeping secrets and never being questioned about them.   
  
“I’m fine.”  
  
“That’s not what I asked.” He points out, but it’s not mocking. Pressing a kiss to the back of Daryl’s neck, he keeps him close, arms around him, keeping him close and from hiding away from him. “Daryl. I know things are tough out here. I get that you’re worried for everybody else, but I’m worried about you. You need to eat.” Because he cannot lose him. And there were a lot of things they can fight, a lot of things they know they can survive, but starvation isn’t one of them. He can’t bear the thought of losing Daryl, someone who fights so hard to survive, to something as basic as starvation.   
  
“I do eat.” Daryl mumbles, and even if he’s feeling questioned, a rough, calloused, cigarette burn scarred hand still curls around Rick’s own. Giving him acknowledgement and a silent promise to at least listen.   
  
Thing is, Rick gets it. He gets wanting to sacrifice everything for others. He would give his life for his children, for his group, for his family. For Daryl. But he can’t bear the thought of Daryl doing something like that for him. Because it wouldn’t be quick. It wouldn’t be a short, sharp, sacrifice in a blaze of glory. It would be slow. It would be long. It would be so damned painful to just watch someone he loves so deeply, someone as vibrant and powerful as Daryl, to just fade away from him. He can’t lose him. Not now. Not ever. Not when they still have so much to do.   
  
“Not enough.” Rick tells him, voice low, whispered between more presses of his lips against the skin of Daryl’s neck. “I cannot watch you just give away food when you need it. We all have our fair share, we all work for it, and we all work together. We can’t do that if you’re just giving up on us.”  
  
That makes Daryl turn around in his arms, facing him in the darkness with a look of pure confusion on his face. “I’m not giving up on you. Could never do that.”  
  
“But you are.” This time he presses a kiss to Daryl’s cracked lips, needing to make him understand. “We need you. And if you give up on yourself, on keeping yourself fed and able to continue, then you’re giving up on us. You think we can go on without you? You think I want to go on without you?” He asks, and god he hates how much it tears at his heart to even think of that outcome. It’s one of his biggest fears, and he can see a reflection of that fear in Daryl’s eyes when the other man looks to him. “Would you want to go on without me? If I stopped eating and let myself get weak? Let myself give up on you?”  
  
Daryl shakes his head before he’s even finished his sentence, hands coming up to grip at Rick’s shirt, inching close enough to share breath with him. And Daryl doesn’t even need to speak, because Rick can see it in his eyes. The understanding, the need to protect, the want to survive for others, for them. For him. And he doesn’t need Daryl to promise to eat, he doesn’t need the other man he knows so well to explain himself. He can see it, he can feel the understanding, and he knows that Daryl will look after himself, if only to be able to continue to look after them. It’s shared between them with another kiss, with a firmer embrace, and with a silent promise in the air they both breathe.   
  
The next day Daryl brings down a brace of rabbits, and eats his fair share. 


	26. Jeryl - "It's okay..."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set after the Season 6 cliffhanger, including my own assumptions. I don't know any spoilers, so if this turns out to be right then, hey I'm just that good.

He doesn’t go back afterwards. 

When Maggie has been helped. When he’s been stitched up. When Rick is back in the here and now. He doesn’t go back.   
  
Everybody else piles into the RV, everyone still upset, Abraham’s body wrapped in sheets, ready to be buried at their home. But that’s the thing. It’s their home, but it’s not his home. He’s never had a home, and he can’t go back there. Alexandria, he just doesn’t fit there. And now, after all of this shit has gone down, he can’t quite bear to go back. Because he knows it’s his fault. He’d gone and gotten caught. Fuck it was his fault from the get go, right from when he’d tried to save those assholes in the burned forest. And now here they were, with dead friends, no power, no control, and the knowledge that there is nothing they can do to change that. They’d thought they’d become the darkest of people just to survive this world. But they’d been wrong, and now it was far too difficult for him to sit and watch his family members fall so far.   
  
They’re upset. Of course they are, but they’re not going to change his mind. Rick is too far gone again, like when he’d lost Lori, and he doesn’t think anything he does is going to help this time. Maybe a while back Rick would have needed him, when they were closer, when the other man would call him brother. But it’s not like that anymore. Rick has his kids, he has Michonne now, and Daryl now knows for sure that whatever connection he thought they had, was long gone now. Rick will be fine, but Daryl doesn’t know if he’ll ever be okay again, and the other man doesn’t need the added stress right now.   
  
So he stays. He feels sick to his stomach as the RV drives away, and he’s not so sure it’s just from the shock and antibiotics they’d forced down his throat. Hill Top isn’t home, but neither is Alexandria, and right now he just can’t face going back there.   
  
“Come on.” Jesus presses a hand to his elbow, catching his attention, bringing him back to the here and now instead of lost in his head. “You can use my room until we get you settled. Right now you need to rest and heal.” It’s a testament to how weak he feels that he doesn’t fight it, instead just hanging his head in a nod and following Jesus into the museum. The place is huge, but he doesn’t care to explore, not when he just feels tired to the bone, and empty through and through. Jesus doesn’t question him, doesn’t ask him why he’s made such a choice. Instead he just gives Daryl his bed, brings him water, more painkillers and antibiotics, and lets him just lie there in silence, stewing in his own misery.   
  
He doesn’t sleep that night. He pretends to, closing his eyes and lying still when Jesus enters to sleep on the couch to the side of the bed, but he doesn’t find any rest from his worries. Instead it all rolls around inside of him, making him feel sick, making the knowledge of his failure to keep his family safe echo in his head until he can’t keep it inside anymore. At first he doesn’t realise he’s crying, not until he can feel the cold, wet dampness of the pillow against his cheek. After that he can’t help it, and the sobs follow soon after, tears flowing easily as he chokes on his grief, misery, and utter devastation that rocks inside of him.  
  
It hurts like a physical wound, as if it’s opening up his chest and carving onto his very soul, reminding him how he’s nothing but a failure, and someone that can’t protect those he holds dear. He doesn’t notice until there is a weight behind him on the bed, a dip in the mattress and an arm wrapping about his waist. The warmth of Jesus rests against his back, he can feel the other man breathing on the back of his neck, but he doesn’t feel the need to draw away as he usually would.   
  
Jesus doesn’t offer any words of false understanding, he doesn’t try to tell him it’s not his fault, or try to coax any explanation from him either. He just holds him, hushes him and lets him sob into his pillow with support there if he needs it. “I got you.” Jesus tells him. “It’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay.” The other man says, his words soothing but not trying to be anything more than reassuring. Even if it doesn’t solve any of his problems, it helps, and he finds himself clinging on to the hand wrapped about his waist for the rest of the night, until sleep finally finds them both.  


	27. Rickyl - "Who the hell did this to you?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in a teenage AU, mentions of child abuse.

“It’s nothin’.” Because he’s had worse. He’s always had worse. No matter what he does to him nowadays, he’s always had worse. When he’d been smaller, when he hadn’t understood why it happened, and when he’d had the childish want for his father to love him. Now he knows better. Now he knows that not all parents were made to love their kids, and he should just be grateful that he still has somewhere to sleep. Least he didn’t have to go through the system like some other poor kids.   
  
But Rick doesn’t get that. Because Rick has the perfect home. He has a dad who is proud of him, and a mom who loves him, and even if he has no siblings, he does have close friends. Besides, the most difficult part of Rick’s life right now was picking which college to go to, his boyfriend didn’t have to wonder if there would be enough food to eat when he got home. They’ve been together a while, and though he knows Rick isn’t stupid, and it would be foolish to think of this as one big secret, they don’t talk about it. Because talking about it wouldn’t help anybody.   
  
“Nothing?” Still Rick doesn’t want to leave it alone, and Daryl finds his face being cupped gently and tilted towards the light for Rick to see better. He scoffs, but he doesn’t pull away because there is no point trying to hide something as obvious as a black eye and a split lip. Rick doesn’t touch the wounds, but he’s close enough to guess just how much they hurt. He doesn’t flinch so much anymore, Rick has proven to not be a threat to him. “Daryl you look…”  
  
“Like shit?” He smirks, it hurts, he can taste when his split lip starts weeping blood again, and he darts out his tongue to catch it before it can drip down his chin. He doesn’t need to look in a mirror to know he looks awful.   
  
“Like you’ve been pulverised.” It doesn’t seem to matter how many times Rick sees him like this, he always looks shocked. Daryl doesn’t think he could be surprised by it anymore, in fact having a day without bruises would be more shocking for him. “Who the hell did this to you?” Rick asks, but he always hates when Rick asks.   
  
“Doesn’t matter.” He replies, giving a loose shrug but not pulling away from Rick’s gentle touch over his bruised and swollen cheek. “Just hurts is all, but it’ll heal up soon enough.” It always does, and besides, he’s used to the pain. Rick still looks annoyed, still looks worried and like he’s going to continue questioning this for as long as it lasts. “Don’t worry.”  
  
“Don’t worry? Daryl how can I not-”  
  
“It’s fine. I’m fine. Can we just not talk about it? Just for a while?” Or ever. his face still aches, Rick is still giving him that looks of concern, but then the lightest of kisses is pressed to the corner of his mouth, and Daryl thinks he can handle it all. 


	28. Rickyl - "It's not your fault."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes Daryl's demons get the better of him, and he needs someone to help him through it.

A lot of people are dead because of him. Sure maybe it’s because of the world being a complete shit hole overall, but really it was all because of him. He’s never been the best of people, but he’s always tried his best to be a half decent person, despite his family name. Daryl knows maybe he’s never been good at it, but he’s always tried to kind of be decent. He steered clear of Merle’s drugs, he stayed out of trouble as best he could, and he’d even tried to do right by his new family. Yet, when it comes down to it, it’s his fault that a lot of them are dead.   
  
He hadn’t been able to stop his dad from being bit. Hadn’t been at the quarry camp to help stop the slaughter. Jim had been bitten because he just couldn’t run any goddamn faster to get there. At the CDC he’d been too frightened for his own life to bother wanting to help anybody else. Then Sophia. God Sophia. If there was on person he knew he was responsible for letting die, it was Sophia. Then Dale, another person let down by his inability to get there quicker. Add T-Dog and Lori to the list, because he’d not wanted to persuade Rick to kill that loose prisoner in the first place.   
  
The chaos of the prison war still hung over his head. With Andrea lost to them, so many other lives just gone because of a war he couldn’t prevent. A war he’d had a hand in making worse by forcing Merle to choose him over his safe township of Woodbury. God Merle. His own brother had gone and let himself get killed because of him. For him. Because Merle knew his baby brother couldn’t get himself out of yet another fucking mess. Knew he needed to save his ass. His own brother had to go and get himself killed because Daryl was still so damned useless at taking care of himself, despite his constant bragging of that ability.   
  
It tears through him at night. When the world is quieter, stiller, and leaves his mind able to wind through the memories and realise how his mistakes have caused so much pain. Some nights he doesn’t sleep. He just finds himself in a limbo of numbness, pressed into a corner of his cell and wrapped around his legs, like he used to when he was a child, and trying to hide from the yells and screams of his parents. It makes him feel small, it makes him feel insignificant, and sometimes, if he’s lucky enough, it makes him feel like he can’t possibly be the one responsible.   
  
Rick is the one that comes to him. In the dead of the night, when it’s the darkest, the one man he’s ever trusted wholly and fully, comes to him with honesty and love. He will never be good enough for Rick, but sometimes he wishes he could be. Especially when he gives him so much. Hands roughened by time and hard work cup at his face, pulling him free from burying himself in his knees, and bring him up to meet blue eyes full of worry and adoration.   
  
“Daryl it’s not your fault. You keep thinking it is, but it’s not.” Rick tells him, with scratchy kisses pressed to his temples before the other man wraps around him, giving him body heat, strength and so much more. “For how long? How long were you bottling this up?” He asks, and God Daryl can’t give an answer that makes sense. Because it’s not days, or months, or anything less than a lifetime. He’s always felt like this, like it’s his fault, because when you’re told it is your fault, everyday, since the day you were born, that everything is your fault, you just don’t think any differently. It’s just habit. So he doesn’t answer.   
  
But Rick is there. Holding him, keeping him steady, kissing him through the deadly silence of the night, pushing back the overwhelming solitude of his life, and making it clear that this is exactly where he’s supposed to be. With Rick. 


End file.
